


Kingdom Come

by shinsxoh



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Assassination, Court Politics, Enemies to Lovers, Forbidden Love, M/M, Princes, Rebels, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 62,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinsxoh/pseuds/shinsxoh
Summary: As a common stable boy, Lee Hoseok does not expect much from life. He wishes for a wife, for slivers of gold, for food on the table and warm blankets to stave off the cold of Middleground's harsh winters. A kingdom plagued by constant tax teaches him only one thing: despise the Royals and their deceitful throne of jewels and silk and lies.When the stable boy unexpectedly finds himself employed in the castle, however, he finds a friend in Ice, learns the secrets of Rose, and realises perhaps there is more than greed and envy to those in control.A rebellion stirs beneath cold stone floors and whispers arise in the court of forbidden romance. A snowflake melts in the presence of fire and a shadow kills men in their beds.A stable boy and a Prince kiss in a room lit by candlelight as the full moon throbs in the sky.It does not end well. It never does.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> this is the project i've been working on for maybe the better part of the year? this entire thing is literally my baby. it's something i'm immensely proud of and i hope you love it as much as i do.
> 
> each chapter is about 7-10k and i have 25 written/planned (if it extends then more content yay). the concept of this is the most novel-like of all my fics!! there's definitely GOT influences as well as philippa gregory novels because i am a sucker for historical politics and characters you love to hate
> 
> tw: major character death, descriptions of p graphic violence. there is not 'smut' in this story but there are descriptions of sex? all of it is entirely consensual and safe. i could not write otherwise. this is very angsty and gets quite dark at some points so be aware - the tone is not exactly light !!! but it is wonkyun so you can't be TOO mad at me :)
> 
> playlist for the story (every song means something so.. read what you wish): [x.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3xPYmHXeeepO8uw1CLxshK)  
> find me: [x.](https://twitter.com/shinsxoh)  
> AUGUST EDIT: there is now a map for this story! check it out [here!](https://twitter.com/shinsxoh/status/1159921621504876546?s=19)

On the day Lee Hoseok’s life changed forever, he woke to the sound of birdsong.

It drifted through the cracks beneath his wooden door and whisked the dirt on the ground into a frenzy of twigs and natural melodies carried by each warble and cry. Hoseok groaned, back aching after lying on the thin woolen blankets all night clutching his flat woven pillow, before dragging himself upright and fumbling for his clothes. He had work to do that day and there was no time to waste. The village market would not be there at night.

After slipping on his usual outfit consisting of a loose white tunic that bunched at his wrists tucked into dirty beige slacks - the rough cotton a contrast to the coarse goat wool and woven grass of his childhood - he found himself meandering into the low-ceiling communal area. Four rooms in total made up the squat wooden hut located on the outskirts of the main traders route into the kingdom of Middleground. There was his bedroom, just large enough for thin floor blankets and the storage of his clothes, as well as the room his grandfather shared with his mother and the main living quarters which featured a smokey hearth, wooden cupboards and a mottled old dining table. The final room was used for travellers - the people of many origins who traversed the winding dirt path through the Eoduun woods and stopped at their stables for a night or two of rest.

His house was small, but it was all he’d ever known.

The warm familiar browns and the stuffy scent of ashy embers were comforting to Hoseok. It reminded him of his childhood, a lighter time in which his father had bought home enough gold to feed them all and he had spent many nights curled up by the fireplace as travellers told him stories of perilous adventure and enjoyable danger and strange lands where men grew hair to their waist. All those fairytales had fueled a wish for exploration in little Hoseok’s mind that had been quickly shattered by age.

Now the dim haze of light that flooded the room in a murky, almost otherworldly fog of milky sun glinted dully on the delicate pin placed against the aged wood of the table.

His Crest.

His families Crest. Characterised by a proud stallion encased in gleaming gold, forever suspended halfway through a gallop with a mane made of polished rock, it told everything a stranger would need to know about the owner just from a secondhand glance.

The Lee family were stablemen. They always had been, and they always would be.

It was rare for a son to venture outside of the families historic profession and even more absurd for a woman to attempt it. As such, Hoseok had known since he was very young that he would become like his Grandfather, sixty ages old and still grooming horses for a petty pik.

Hoseok didn’t mind. He liked being a stableboy, liked the freedom that came with self-employment even if it meant poverty. When his Grandfather had gifted him protection of the families crest at the mere age of eighteen Hoseok had accepted the responsibility seriously. He would carry the Lee family to greatness, he promised himself.

But first, he mused as he pinned the golden circle onto his old tunic, he had work to do.

Once outside he briefly stopped to offer a prayer at the cobbled shrine of wood and stone beside his house, taking a moment to breathe the earthy smells of moss and dirt and appreciate the orange sunlight as it filtered from the canopy above, before making his way to his familiar stable. The trodden path brought him to the open-topped craft of the stalls that housed four horses - two mottled Shires, a dappled Mustang, and the final mare that belonged to the traveller they were currently housing. Habit caused him to nimbly slip the knife from his boot and flick it towards the first stable pillar in a practiced throw. A loud thud echoed in the quiet forest and one of the horses neighed in time with a flutter of startled crows.

“Good throw, right?” the stable boy grinned, brushing the nick in the wood with his thumb after pulling back his knife. Perfect centre.

Hoseok had always been good at throwing knives. An observant gaze and sharp reaction meant he could hit a target from thirty horses away. His mother had called it a useless skill but his grandfather had encouraged it, carving his weathered old dagger with Hoseok’s own initials and wrapping the handle in scuffed red leather as a present for his thirteenth birthday.

All of a sudden a loud crack of wood sounded from behind him. The horse to his left - a sturdy, muscular mare with flaxen coat - whined and bucked in her pen, hooves kicking the latched door and making a sound not unlike that of a crushed piece of metal underfoot. Hoseok was quick to launch into action, smile wiped from his face as he gently offered his hand to calm her.

“Shh, still,” he murmured softly, stroking her muzzle as he cradled her head. The movement stopped her brief canter and allowed for the stable boy to greet the stout man who had made the noise as he had approached. “Good rest?”

“Aye,” came the nasal sound of agreement. The wearied traveller wore a cape of white fox fur paired with a moth-eaten tunic and dirtied hareem pants. “How much do I owe for your services?”

“That’ll be two piks for your nightly stay, and a third for your horses fodder,” Hoseok replied, voice tame as he lulled the mare back into a feeling of safety. He could not remember the name the traveller had given him the previous night but she was a beautiful creature with chestnut ringed eyes and sun-bleached hair.

A grunt of acceptance sounded above the birdsong and Hoseok accepted the gold from the strangers gloved hand gratefully. Each coin was small and stamped with numerals that depicted it’s meaning - three round piks, the least valued gold, glinted against his calloused hand.

A charming smile and unlock of the stable door signalled for the man to hoist himself up onto his horse. Hoseok watched him go with a ghosted smile, the familiar sound of horse hooves on dirt growing quieter as the mare’s tail disappeared around the corner.

Later, after switching fodder for his remaining three rent horses, adjusting a bit that had been crushed by the barrow earlier that week and brushing a trapped rock from the oldest stallions shoe, he waltzed into the main room of his dimly lit wooden house juggling the three small slivers of gold as the watery blues of dawn faded into the vibrant pulse of early spring sun.

A mousy-haired woman was curled up on one of their rickety chairs, white nightgown wrinkled and bitten fingernails clutching a book so old the bounds had slipped and each page fluttered loose.

“Morning ma,” he said with a gentle kiss to her thin hair. She was a fragile woman, weak not with age but with exhaustion, but though her slim hands shook and eyes glazed over from time to time she maintained the elegance she held in youth and her wrinkled face was as pretty as twenty years past.

“My beautiful son,” she said. Her smile was as soft as the surface of rose petals and her eyes balanced precariously between focus.

“Did you sleep well?” Hoseok asked, placing the bridle with a broken latch on the hood inside the door. He made a mental note to take it to the blacksmith to find a fix later that day.

“Not really,” his mother mused quietly. “The birds kept me awake.”

“There are no birds at night, ma. They’re sleeping like you should be,” Hoseok smiled to himself upon realising the book she clutched in her pale hands was upside down. When he went to take the weathered pages and lay them down by the flickering candle, she did not protest her sons actions, passive in her own existence.

“Oi, son!” A loud shout echoed from the entrance to the house, quickly accompanied by the tell-tale sound of the door swinging shut and the clank of metal against wood. “The guest stable is empty. You send off our resident? He pay well?”

“Grandfather!” Hoseok grinned at the man who had just entered and held up the glinting gold. “Three piks, as promised.”

“Aye. Honest men are honourable men.”

“But you’re never honest.”

“Never said I was honourable either.”

At that Hoseok laughed. His grandfather was a greying man, scarred rough by his time spent at war and only half the build of his former battle-worthy self, but his kind eyes and cheeky wit never diminished as he aged past sixty.

“I’m headed down to the docks, gonna check if there's any extra work for me with Yusum and his crew,” Hoseok explained while watching the broad man adjust the notches of his hunting bow. “I’ll bring back food, some warm bread for ma with the extra gold.”

“Good son. Kaimin is visiting later and we’re gon’ head out to hunt,” his grandfather said in reply, inspecting the edges of the horsehair string. “You remember the two rules of village life?”

“Never leave my pockets open, and if I see a rich man - run.”

“That-a-boy,” his grandfather beamed. “Now go! Shoo! Bring us back food before I flog you.”

“Don’t work too hard, grandpa! Rest that leg!” Hoseok called as he stepped foot on the dewy dirt path outside. The air vibrated with the energy of the earth and smelt like moist grass and rose.

“Buy me a new one and maybe I’ll consider,” his grandfather quipped.

The condition of his grandfathers leg had been a subject of many jokes in the stable boy’s lifetime. After serving in the Five Year War with the Southern Sun nation, he had returned home with two less things than he had left with - a leg and a son.

One of them was far easier to poke fun at and so the metal contraption - built around a wooden peg and fastened by leather straps - was the butt of many jokes. It had been crafted by a family friend who had worked at the blacksmiths for three decades. Perhaps the most expensive item that frequented the house, the metal foot always made it clear when his grandfather was approaching due to the clank of the supports as he moved.

“Sure thing pa, if you can find ten Drachens lying around.”

“Ain’t never seen a Drachen in my life, son,” his Grandfather laughed his hearted, weary laugh, and the sound carried Hoseok along the trodden dirt paths to the centre of the kingdom he belonged to.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

On an early Thursday morning the market of Middleground hummed with activity. People of all backgrounds bustled down the slim walkways characterised by tall wooden buildings and the smell of sea salt and dirt. Long known for its trading outposts focused in the middle of the Eodunn forest - the slip of large woodland that seperated the Highland mountains from the Southern Sun kingdom - Middleground’s village was built on a large plain partially overhung on the river Hangwon, stilted houses, riverside inns and algae climbing walls next to roses.

It seemed to be a place of prosperity, of hope and happiness and grounded wealth.

Hoseok knew better.

He knew better in the shaded stone arches that housed beggars dressed in rags and coughed blood stained with sickness and the plague of the poor. He knew better in the balding men who beckoned young girls into building too big to be safe, knew better in the familiar dress of dirtied grey tunics and worn sandals. Middlegound may have been a prosperous place, but it was not rich by any means.

War had squandered Middleground. Left it ruined in deaths wake.

While wandering down the main walkway Hoseok briefly stopped at a vendor selling imported Khamsen silk and ladies garments. The table was decorated with delicate dresses, sheer shawls and jewelled necklaces that were dripping with fake rubies and gems. Each item was selling for at least four Sophers - an extortionate amount worth more than a year of Hoseok’s wages. It was clear they were in high demand too for the vendor was having a hard time juggling the warbling customers as they bargained for a lower price.

Contained within his small bubble of calm, the bustling market grew quiet as he stroked the elegant folds of a lilac dress pulled in at the waist and adorned with pretty white lace. It came with a bonnet much like the one his mother kept hidden away in her room - a painful reminder of her marriage to Hoseok’s father and one of the only old possessions she still kept after they sold most of their utilities for food after the war had ended.

“Can I help you?” The vendor directed the patronising comment at Hoseok’s prolonged hovering. The stable boy shook his head quickly. He was painfully aware of how his dirtied appearance did not leave the best impression and so he was quick to turn on his heel and meld into the crowd once again.

One day he would be able to buy that dress for his mother. One day he would do it, even if it took twenty years of saving piks and not eating dinner every night.

Weaving through the market was always fun. He nimbly snuck between processions of cloaked men, laughed when a market vendor swat his hand as he picked an apple and whirled away into the crowd, before a skip joined his gallant step when he focused on a very familiar bakery and the smell of pasties in the watery sun.

“Morning Kangmi,” he grinned as he ducked under the low wooden overhang of the door. He was immediately greeted by a wall of sweet smells, the overwhelming scent of warm food making his stomach rumble and his mouth water. There were countless loaves of bread and complex folds of knotted pan laid out with prices carved into the wood of every display.

“Hoseok!” The girl from behind the counter was dressed modestly and her buck-toothed smile filled the room.

Pinned on her grey pullover was the Crest of the Baker - a pretty knot of bread inlaid with silver and bronze. Not prestigious or held in high regards by any means. It was simply a mundane representation of her family name.

“The usual please,” Hoseok said with his usual lopsided smile.

“Comin’ right up, mister!” The girl replied cherrily. “That’ll be one pik.”

Kangmi was nice. Pretty in that plain way, dark hair of the commonfolk framing similarly dark eyes, a button nose and slightly crooked front teeth. She was always kind to Hoseok, wrapping an extra pastry into his bundle or sprinkling sugar on his roll despite his lack of gold. Many years ago the pretty common girl had snuck him dried beef or slivers of chicken through the back door of the bakery during times rife with war, allowing Hoseok to bring home his mother something more than cabbage or carrots with their dwindling supply of gold. Later they had fooled around like teenagers did. Hoseok could still remember the taste of her sticky sugar lips and the feel of her freckled skin under his hands.

“Thank you, Kangmi,” He offered a charming smile matched with a wink when he took the warm food and her flute-like giggle filled the hot air.

“Come more often,” she said, a faint flutter to her eyelashes. “Boring without you.”

Hoseok nodded and he took a bite of his pastry - relishing in the brief explosion of sour berries followed by the unbridled sweetness of bread - before he was waving goodbye and making his way out into the busy market once again.

Perhaps he would be happy married to Kangmi. Maybe he should ask her on a date properly next week, talk to her father, have the ceremony next summer. Two children to help run the stable, income from her bakery to support both their families. It would work. A normal life, albeit one interwoven with poverty and a struggle to live off the hard ground, but a normal life nonetheless.

That was all Hoseok wanted really. A normal life with a normal family and bellies full of hot fresh food.

As he darted through the crowds he saw many others he knew. He offered smiles and jeers to market-men who waved and shot cheeky grins at giggling peasant girls who he had kissed behind stalls or at the edges of the wood. It was not often somebody did not know who Hoseok was. When they didn’t, they usually knew his grandfather.

Eventually the din from the land markets softened into the sound of waterbound work and the bustling activity of the ports. Middleground was a kingdom built on the old river of Hangwon, a strong force that wove it’s way from the Highland mountains down to the open brooks of the Great Sea. Legend told that an ancient giant had struck the earth with a staff at the point where the land touched the heavens and it had split the ground in two as his blood filled the ravine with water.

Middleground’s greatest exports were its fish. The outer lands procured grain and wheat and grass, but the business of fishing, the winding windmills and the houses that stood on stilts above the water as sea-weathered men fixed their sails and cast nets to drag the silt from the sand was the legacy of Hoseok’s land. The river was not wide and was surrounded by dense woodland on one side but the waters were rich with life and food.

"Aye, Yusum!" he called the moment he spotted a familiar ship docked by a bustling inn. Mottled wood glistened cedar and russet as a crew of ten men worked rigging the sail, hauling large bags onto the sea-sprayed deck. The smell of salt was poignant and the air hummed with the sweat of a hundred working men.

"Hoseok!” The auburn haired man paused in his act of securing his overhand bow-knot and offered a tan scarred hand in greeting. “Holding up good? How's the old man?"

"Great now he's avoiding you!" Hoseok jested and scanned the bustling deck. "Any work for today?"

"Sorry son. We're full." The seaman sounded genuinely apologetic despite the teasing glint in his weathered eyes. "Could pass us the hook on the side though, gotta rig this rope up to the sternum or we'll capsize before leaving port."

At the command Hoseok spun around with searching eyes and grabbed the rusted metal hook lying on the oyster-covered wooden planks. He weighed the leaden object and inspected the sharpened point before a mischievous smile kept onto this face.

"Oi, Yusum!” he called as he spun back around. “Duck!"

"Son, why are you- _ah_!" The old man's hoarse voice rose three octaves as he swerved out the way of the hook that had just hurtled past his scared gaze and dug into the wood of the boat's pillar with a deafening clang.

The other crew looked up in surprise as their outraged captain Yusum raised a calloused fist in his direction.

"Lee Hoseok!"

"You're welcome!"

"You little shit! Coulda had my head!"

"Not sorry!" He called through his laughter before he launched from his heel and ran back into the crowd, weaving his way through the throngs of people tunnelling into the city centre and away from the Port. Behind him the seaman's curses grew dirtier in nature while they slipped beneath the noise of the crowd like a boat sinking underwater.

As his laughter glided beneath the salty waves of conversation rippling around him, Hoseok found himself frowning while he darted between the loud commonfolk. Why were there so many people about? They were all moving towards the town centre like a mass shoal of fish wearing grey tunics and sacked shoes. He briefly stilled and scanned the sliver of sky shown between the towering stilted houses and in that moment he swore he heard the distant ringing of the congregation bell.

There was a kingdom gathering taking place on the dawn of a middle week morn? That was nearly unheard of.

It was far too crowded for him to possibly see past all the brown-haired commonfolk swarming the small walkways. After a moment of hesitation, he bounded up a pile of boxes outside a market (ignoring the shout of outrage from the owner) before reaching out a nimble hand and swinging himself onto a ledge that ran between two buildings.

Climbing was another skill he had garnered throughout his lifetime. Many years working on the boats - learning how to swing on ropes between sails, scale nets without looking and dispel a fear of heights as well as his strength with both tacking horses and pulling loads had equipped him well for a way of travel across the rooftops of the town.

His grandfather had always told him that the only thing he wasn't good at was knowing when to shut his mouth.

Hoseok would be lying if he said that wasn’t true.

Jumping from ledge to ledge, scaling outcrops and hauling himself up ropes that connected the tall riverside buildings, Hoseok followed the crowd of people as they surged towards the centre and the sound of the town-bell ringing. Eventually the end of the narrow walkway was in sight and he found the sweet taste of curiosity biting at his stomach.

Ducking into an alcove and scurrying through a half-full storage room that echoed cobwebs in the corner and procured the musty stench of grain he eventually he came to an arched window with a metal hook hanging over the outcrop. It was obviously purposed for the levering of flour to the highest floor and Hoseok tentatively tested the standing wooden ledge to find it shook but held firm. It offered him a perfect view of the village centre above and a gentle breeze of sea-salt caressed his face and stirred his fear while he peered out over the centre to see what the commotion was about.

It was the Royals.

It was immediately obvious by the impressive procession that the congregation was monachal. White horses draped in silks were held steady by Knights dressed similarly elaborately. A long line of carriages extended through the square and each was dominated by militarian guards with golden crests glistening on their lapel next to flags of allegiance to the king. The cobblestone area was packed to each corner with milling commonfolk clothed in drab browns and greys and blues, bonnets pinned in their hair or straw hats on their heads, a direct contrast to the regal, commanding presence of the Royals.

Every single eye was focused on one man in particular.

The Prince.

Hoseok inhaled sharply when he noticed the boy stood prim and arrogant on the steps of his town, guarded closely by a Knight decorated with a gold trimmed shawl and frills that glittered with embroidered gems. The King’s first and only son rarely made an appearance in public. As a matter of fact Hoseok could only recall two other times he had witnessed his presence - once when he was ten years old and the Five Year War had ended, and once when he was thirteen at the King’s second marriage ceremony.

Prince Im had a perfect poker face. His delicate eyes were sour and his lip curled in distaste as he scanned the mass crowd of dull fabric and dirt. He was pretty but clearly arrogant; a rotten core hidden beneath a shiny surface of poised grandeur and an immaculate posture. Startling black hair fell over irises ringed with hazel, the light halo of his eyes an unnervingly beautiful contrast to the dark shadows of his eyebrows and paleness of his Royal skin as they shone under the weak spring sun.

A scribe was currently addressing the audience while reading from a yellowed scroll of paper and so, after a few more moments of shock staring at the beauty of the Prince, Hoseok redirected his attention to the booming speech.

“-It is with great honour that I can be here to address you today, and bring such wondrous news to our beloved people. The Prince’s marriage is expected to be the grandest event Middleground has ever known. It shall be so that the dignified heavens above will look upon our song and dance and happiness and shower us with love,” the scribe called. Hoseok frowned, immediately perplexed. This was about The Prince’s marriage? Was it really so soon? He didn’t look any older than twenty. The scribe smiled and his voice dripped with condescending tones - he almost seemed to belittle the crowd with each forceful word. “Because of this expectation, we kindly ask for all members of the public who’s families carry a Crest among them to hereby donate one-quarter of their monthly earnings to His Majesty The King so that celebrations rich with splendour and brilliance may continue and we can welcome his future wife with open arms.”

The crowd launched into a surprised uproar at the statement. One-quarter of a families earnings? That amount of money would render Hoseok incapable of buying fodder for his horses or bread for his mother every evening. They would be back to the beginning. Nothing.

Hatred boiled in his veins. How dare the poisoned Royals - sat high and mighty on their piles of sharp cut jewels and silk and furs, eating five courses for lunch and throwing the rest to pollute the river - demand more money from their hunger-plagued people? Were they so totally ignorant, spoiled dumb by the kings before them, observing the village with eyes blinded by greed sat in their stone fortress?

“We dearly ask for your full cooperation in the bringing of peace to this beautiful, prosperous Kingdom,” the scribe finished smoothly, retreating to stand behind the Prince as another man took his place. When the second speaker began talking over the shouting of the villagers, however, it was about the logistics of the tax collection.

Hoseok let out an exasperated sigh. Perhaps he could avoid the tax if he returned home - their stables were technically past the outskirts of the village anyway. Maybe he had been too caught up in his extra pebbles of gold recently and the earth Gods had come to spite him for his arrogance in the face of poverty.

However, as he went to turn away and slip into the shadows once more, something caught his eye.

Leaning out the window and scanning the alcoves two stories below, his heart sunk when he recognised the telltale glint of pointed metal stuck around a wooden window frame.

An arrow pointed straight at the Prince's heart.

It was loaded and ready to fire. Hidden away from the sun in the shadows in a way that told of expertise, carefully positioned so that the mass swarm of guards on the ground would not be able to see.

Hoseok’s heart fluttered in his chest. Was this a possible assassination attempt? Should he stop it? _Could_ he stop it? Would calling out do anything or simply escalate the problem?

Hoseok shook his head at the deluded thoughts flooding his mind. It was _not_ his problem. The Royals were not and had never been a concern for him – as a matter of fact they were a burden, a constant drain of money and resources on the residents of Middleground and all commonfolk got in turn was scornful, dirty glares for a way of life they couldn’t help. The world would be better without them.

Hoseok would not interfere.

Once again, he went to turn away.

Once again, the image of green eyes halted his movement.

There was something about the delicate lips of Prince Im as he stood aloof on the stone steps, something almost childlike in the way he puffed up his chest and looked down his nose at those below him. His hair glittered almost navy under the soft light of early spring and his thin cape trimmed with white fur and printed with the Royal Crest fluttered around his slim frame.

That trivial, arrogant boy had the audacity to steal gold from under his citizen's noses with the power of pure thought. It was disgusting. Demeaning. The worst of the worst.

But, as Hoseok watched the sparse clouds clear and saw the way his hazel eyes shimmered in the golden sun, he realised there was no way he could let that boy die.

Hoseok groaned as he made his decision and hurriedly unhooked the rope attached to the spinning wheel of the leverage system. A pull of the fraying material showed it was connected to a shop halfway across the centre, hidden by the stone steps the Prince was currently lording over.

Perfect.

When he had worked on the fisher boats he had learnt many knots and so he employed the rolling hitch for security. Looping the rough rope around his wrist, he gave it a quick tug to pull it taught, heart speeding up when it held steady.

A frantic glance found the glinting string of the bow pulled back with aim.

“Forgive me Grandfather,” he whispered and then, without another thought, Hoseok launched himself over the wooden barrier and across the commonfolk below.

For a moment it was as if he was flying. The crowd was a blur of fabric beneath and the wind whistled smoothly in his ear like the gentle ebb of riverbourne waves. It almost felt as if his burning arms were elegant feathered wings and he too could sing a song about the beautiful dawn breeze.

Then his feet his hard ground and his body lit up in pain. His knees scraped along the cold stone and tore his slacks to shreds as his torso tumbled over in an agonising twist of his arm against his neck.

There was no time to think. Not about the pain or his clothes or his life. All Hoseok could do was scramble to his feet and burst into a sprint towards the shadow of the Prince.

“Stop right there!”

A Knight’s resounded voice punctuated the charged air but there was no _time._ Frantic, Hoseok ducked an outstretched sword and lunged for the Prince.

Prince Im was surprisingly light. Beneath the pads of his expensively woven fabric there was not much mass and so they both went tumbling onto the hard floor, the Royal letting out a fearful shriek and whole body seizing up in terror.

Caging the slim boy with his forearms Hoseok searched his face for any injury after his head hit the stone.

Instead all he found was fear. With an entire face coated in terror and a panicked shout building in his chest, he looked as if he was truly about to die.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Hoseok realised just how beautiful the Prince was up close.

Then an arrow sped over their head and impaled itself in the wooden wall behind them.

The crowd screamed.

A sharp tug on the back of Hoseok’s white tunic caused it to tear with a terrible sound as he was dragged to his feet. He barely had time to register the cold press of a blade against his throat and the shouts of the Royals around him before he was ducking beneath the sword, spinning out of the iron grip on his wrist and slipping his knife from his boot.

Without thinking Hoseok sidestepped the two soldiers that lunged for him, but, upon attempting to dodge the swing of a sword, there came sudden warmth dripping down his cheek and pain sparking through his jaw.

The shadow in the window was still there.

Hoseok had no time to judge the wind or the angle while he felt hot heavy blood spill down his tunic.

He spun himself into a crouch and threw the knife with as much power as his limbs allowed.

Hoseok never missed.

Everything seemed to quieten around him as if draped with muffling fabric. The only sound was the dramatic pound of his heartbeat in his ears while he stared, both awestruck and repulsed, as a man dressed in black robes with a hood tied over his head and a bow in his hand fell lifeless over the barrier of the alcove and hurtled to the ground beneath him.

The sickening crunch of a dead body falling onto stone floor was audible across the entire square.

The brief silence echoed in the wide centre up to the brilliant blue sky until a single blood-curdling scream sounded in the marketplace.

A terrible cacophony of noise arose from the crowd and Royals alike. Shouting and screaming and dramatic cries for loved ones but all Hoseok could see were the terrified hazel eyes of the Prince staring at him in fear while the guards converged around him. Their eyes met for what seemed like half a second and then he disappeared behind a wall of Knights and guards.

Hoseok’s mind was muffled with shock and adrenaline as his frozen body was dragged to the side, rough ropes being bound around his wrist and people shouting orders at him. He gaped blankly at the guards swarming the startled Prince as they ushered him into the open carriage. There came the vague feeling of wetness on his cheek and weakness of his knees. With his ears ringing and mind numb, Hoseok did nothing to fight.

When he heard somebody shout his name from the crowd he was struck from his daze. He looked down at the rope binding his wrists and back up at the terrified face of Kangmi in the audience.

Pretty, plain, buck-toothed Kangmi who he would have married in a heartbeat.

Hoseok began to shout.

“Wait, wait!” He protested, yanking back on the restraints and relishing in the surprised looked he garnered for his strength. “Let me go! I ain’t done nothing!”

“Be quiet, commoner!” A particularly magnificently dressed knight commanded as he struggled against the pushing hands manoeuvring his body. The stable boy vaguely recognised him as the regal Princeguard who had been hovering beside the Prince earlier.

“Get off me! Don’t touch me, you money-hungry, piece of shit rotten Royals-” he kicked his legs when he was suddenly lifted from the ground and thrown into a barred carriage. It’s arches were high and golden, the insides carpeted in velvet and wider than any horse transport cart in its luxury. The impact left his mind reeling and pain flared in his legs and back from the uncomfortable landing. For a moment it was if he could hardly breathe at all, stuffed into the heavy metal floor of the carriage between two golden benches.

Just as he was steeling himself to throw his built shoulders at the closed door and force himself from capture, he froze at the cold press of a blade against his neck as two men clambered in through the only entrance, his only escape, and slammed the bolt with a metal pole painted in gold and green. The horrible sound of his galloping heartbeat echoed in his ears and he hardened himself with a haggard breath.

His heart hit the floor like a dead weight body when the carriage lurched forward with movement and the familiar sound of horse-hooves on stone. He was being taken. His hands were bound. No escape.

“I said, be quiet commoner,” the Princeguard commanded - one of the men who had entered the carriage. His voice was sickeningly calm as if threatening somebody with death was as simple as laying his head against a silk pillow and falling into happy slumber.

“Who are you?” Hoseok spit, reeling from the icy metal against his dirty skin and straining against his rope bindings - an act that echoed with the same pain as his stinging cheek.

“My name is Son Hyunwoo, carrier of the Crest of the Protector, the sole Princeguard and advisor to his Highness the Prince of Middleground,” the man continued, unhurried in his speech. His golden-tasselled shoulder pads glittered under the dappled sunlight of the carriage window as did the hilt of his sword. For a brief moment Hoseok wondered why he was so tanned - the Royals were known for being pale due to their habitation indoors, but Hyunwoo was the same colour as his weather-exposed worker skin. “You are under arrest for suspicion of endangering his Highness the Prince’s life as well as laying unwanted hands on him-”

“Endangering his life?” Hoseok exclaimed and yanked on his binds. “I saved it! Let me out of here you sick, ignorant shit-”

“Will you please let me finish?”

“Why the _fuck_ would I do that?”

No change occurred to his blank expression. It was almost scary how detached he was. “I suggest you talk kinder to the King if you wish to keep your tongue,” Hyunwoo said smoothly.

“I suggest you talk kinder to the King if you wish to keep your tongue,” Hoseok mocked before turning to continue kicking at the jewel engraved door to the golden carriage. “Help! Help me! I’m innocent, these fuckers have me trapped-”

Out of the corner of his eye Hoseok saw the Princeguard offer a small nod of command to the other knight riding alongside him. Hoseok was too late to react, however, and in a short moment he was kicking and running his throat raw as the man struggled to tie a gag around his mouth without getting his fingers bitten off.

When he finally pulled away Hoseok was rendered completely helpless. The slow realisation of his vulnerable situation was beginning to dawn on him, the adrenaline in his body trickling away only to be replaced by fear.

“You did not let me finish,” Hyunwoo said in response to his deadly stare. “Your arrest has since been revoked due to great actions performed to protect said Prince.”

Hoseok frowned and stopped attempting to kick at the bolt securing the door. He was not being arrested? Then why was he being taken to the castle?

“His Majesty the King shall decide whether you are worthy of punishment or reward.” Hyunwoo continued and Hoseok paled. The King was going to speak to him? Fear gripped his throat and held it tight in a vice. “Please, make yourself comfortable, but do try not to bleed over the seats. They are imported Khamsen silk and the Prince shall be very distressed to find them stained,” he lamented.

Hoseok forced every ounce of anger and disrespect possible into his fiery stare. Hyunwoo watched, seemingly equal parts unimpressed and disinterested, as Hoseok learnt forward and rubbed his still bleeding cheek on the plush silken sides of the carriage.

“Commonfolk.”

Hoseok whirled to face the older Knight sat next to him at the sound of such a word uttered so detestfully. The gag tasted of salt and musty soap in his mouth and it pulled uncomfortably at his tongue when he tried to throw a defensive retort.

The man snickered at his apparent realisation of helplessness and Hoseok’s cheeks burned with shame. He slumped against the seat and tried not to let the hatred lapping at his stomach and clouding his brain overwhelm him. How dare these men say commonfolk with such disgust in their words? How dare they treat him as anything less than human?

With fear clawing at his chest and tearing into his lungs, the stable boy sat back defeated and watched through the barred windows as he passed through the stilted streets of Middleground, wishing beyond anything that he had never saved Prince Im’s life and that he could just go home.

The sun was reaching the highest point in the sky as they ascended the long road to the cold stone castle. All Hoseok could hope was that his mother would not miss him while he was gone.


	2. II

By the time they arrived at the castle, positioned above the rising hill overlooking the plains of the Kingdom, the sky was bleeding a muffled orange and the hushed sounds of birdcall were nowhere to be found. Hoseok was forced from the golden steps of the carriage by the glinting point of a silver sword. While the scenery along the stretched road had been pleasant, there was something stifling in the hardness of the trodden ground beneath him, something intimidating in the warm hues that glittered across the precious metal of the transport.

A cold shadow hovered just out of reach, the sunset giving up hope of ever bringing light to the darkness.

The castle rose to the heavens as if forced from the earth, the land thrusting up crude pillars of marble and cobbled stone out of the overhang creating the magnificent stretch of wood and rock that was the Middleground Castle. Complimented by imposing turrets, slit window and intricate markings, the castle did not throb with the aura of life. Instead it seemed to be a sinking hole of despair, of cold lifeless energy that made Hoseok pale beneath his bloodied cheek and gag. Reminscent of the loneliness felt traversing worn paths alone or the haunting sensation of dawn before the sun had touched the blue leaves.

The stable boy was used to seeing the formations of the building from far below in the village as a far away reminder of his insignificance. Up close? It was completely terrifying.

“What? Have you never seen a castle before, Commoner?” Came the sneering voice of the second knight that had ridden with him and the Princeguard. “Look carefully. It might be your last chance.”

Hoseok gulped.

“Party, onward!” The Princeguard Hyunwoo shouted, before turning to the silent Hoseok with an intense stare and apologetic tone. “Pay no mind to Arikho. He is mountain-born and has never been pleasant.”

The stable boy had no time to wonder why Hyunwoo seemed to care for his wellbeing, as he called for order and they heaved into position - the knights a living, breathing organ of metal and white cloaks. The stoic mass procession of knights and scribes and carriage hauliers moved in an organised line through the dark shadow of the Middleground castles courtyard towards the towering entrance framed in old stonework and two roaring lionhead gargoyles. The Prince was nowhere in sight and the stable boy assumed he had been squirrelled away to somewhere safe.

Hoseok refused to be scared.

Villagers would be scared, but he was no villager. He was a loner, living on the outskirts, a stable boy, a man of mischief. He would be fire in the face of cold adversaries.

None of that thinking did much to quell the anxiety gnawing at his brain.

The procession traipsed inside the wooden doors that opened without a signal. Chills crept along Hoseok’s spine at the clicking metalwork and creak of old wood.

The Princeguard led them inside.

With his waist-high brown slacks, scuffed leather boots and ripped white tunic stained with blood Hoseok felt very out of place inside the grand throne room.

It was elaborate. Higher than the heavens, wider than the river, the hall seemed to swallow him up in one gulp as he crossed the threshold.

Extortionately expensive gold trim lined each pillar and rained down the walls. Silver hung from the grandiose ceiling and stood as high candle holders, thick red tapestries depicting famous legends and the Crest of the Royals hung heavy from the high rafters. Precious metals dripped from each corner of the room, inlaid in the steps leading to the throne, winding their way around the lavish thrones positioned in the centre. A soaring ceiling almost seemed to touch the sky above him, so dark the firelight could not reach it, the embellished stone arches linking together and candles hung on rubied shelves falling from the tall height. The traditional colours of Middleground - earth green and precious gold - could be found in every corner of the hall and they rippled in the heavy crested flags crossed to the wall.

Huge great torches ringed in black metal and smelling of perfumed wood burnt beneath each pillar. Despite the roaring flames there was no heat to be found in such a cold, empty room, drawing out the very breath from Hoseok’s lungs and filling them with ice instead. It seemed as if the room should have been filled with nobles and the sons of courtiers. Without such it held a hauntingly empty grip on his heart and Hoseok felt infinitely smaller where he stood frozen and gaping.

He knew the Royals lived in luxury but this was beyond anything he had ever imagined.

Anger throbbed faintly in his veins. This is what the cold palace walls had been hiding on the hill that surveyed the kingdom? They lived in jewelled turrets and heated halls while he struggled to feed his mother every evening?

A hand shoved his back and he stumbled forward in surprise. A snicker echoed in the otherwise silent room and his face burned with shame and anger as two knights - neither of them Hyunwoo - roughly manoeuvred him across the threaded golden carpet with the fifty knighted men behind them. Eventually he came to a stop below the towering steps that led to the thrones and he recoiled in surprise as warm hands touched the sides of his face.

"Remember to bow,” Hyunwoo said softly, almost kindly while he gently unwound the gag. “The King likes manners."

Hoseok gulped. His cheek throbbed from the scabbing cut and his jaw ached from being restrained by cloth. It did not help that his torn white tunic was stained with trickles of blood and his hands were dirtied and tied.

Without the pressing fear of sweet-smelling cloth removing his only weapon - his tongue - Hoseok found he could finally drag his gaze to settle on the towering structures above him.

Two thrones stood proud above the many imposing stone steps, each larger than life, build for giants and not men. The gold of the first was thick and heavy and complemented by red pelt. Each sturdy pillar was adorned with a ruby jewel that glittered under the light and must have cost more than Hoseok's house alone. The second throne was equally as spellbinding with precious metal laid in winding branches of silver that were set so they looked interwoven. It almost seemed as if the seat grew from the stone beneath it, a living breathing reminder of the spirit of the earth.

Sat, side by side in each throne, were perhaps the most terrifying and yet regal people Hoseok had ever laid eyes on.

The King and Queen of Middleground.

The King was an imposing man. All wide shoulders and sinewy muscle, a thick stalk neck sat on broad shoulders emphasised by an copper beard that grew in wiry spirals down to his chest. There was a strange depression in the green of his eyes - not in terms of sadness, but as a hollow tunnel of indifference that focused its cold gaze on Hoseok’s face. They were the same colour as the Prince's - a clear sign of Middleground Royalty.

The King’s hand lay in the Queen's lap.

The Silent Queen.

Hoseok knew the tale, had heard it from whispers between tradesman and the many types of people he housed at his stables. The Silent Queen had turned up at the King’s doorstep with her bloodied son in her arms. She had been taken in immediately, having stolen away from the King of Highland and sought safety in Middleground. Like all Highland brides her tongue had been cut out as a rite of marriage - in the brutish culture of those who lived on the stormy mountains of the north, the removal of the tongue awarded complete control to the husband. The woman could neither ask to leave or consent to another man. She was imprisoned.

That was why, when her marriage to the King of Middleground had been announced only a week after her arrival, the entire kingdom went into shock (Hoseok vividly remembered his Grandfather ranting viciously about the new Queen for two weeks straight when she had been crowned). According to legend he had been so entranced by her otherworldly beauty he had been unable to stop his proposal. Upon seeing her for the first time Hoseok happened upon believing that myth - she was extraordinarily beautiful, a sharp face contrasting a full figure and her eyes disconcerting in the strength of their gaze.

The King of Middleground taking the Queen of Highland to be his wife. Hoseok supposed the only reason war had not ensued is because women meant so little to those of the mountains. Taking her back was too much effort to consider.

Their condescending stares alone were enough to force ice into the bones of the stable boy below them, but they were not the only ones looking down on him from beside the throne.

Standing primly next to the Queen was a man dressed in crimson from head to toe. It was a dark shade - the colour of dried blood, perhaps, the fabric velvet and thick. His hair was the same hue of wine, features sharp underneath the darkness and slim eyes sly like a blackbird, cheek marred by a rough white scar that drew across his right eye. Scarlet dripped from his collar in lace and ended at the golden shine of his Crest; a blooming rose encased in thorns.  
  
Hoseok found himself staring at the second Prince in somewhat close to fear. While Prince Changkyun was young, baby faced and obviously spoilt, his older stepbrother had an air of power about him. Perhaps it was the foreign look that unsettled the stable boy so deeply. With hair and features told of Highland origin, the nose similar to those of that background who's horses he had kept, his ears drawing to a pointed tip in the defining feature of mountain born men; He was much like a black raven, much like a fox. Knowing. Shrewd.  
  
When the second Prince caught him staring, his lips curled into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.  
  
His teeth were all made of gold.

Needles prickled down Hoseok’s spine. It was so unnerving to see such unnatural things. The buffed metal in his mouth glinted dully in the firelight and each point seemed unsettlingly sharpened beyond human standards.

Hoseok swallowed thickly and he turned to face the King once more, stare following through to rest on Prince Im.

It was clear that the Prince took after his late mother and not his living father. The boy whose life he had saved was stood to the side of his father's throne with his arms behind his back and nose tilted up, sour expression and square of his shoulders doing nothing to disguise his delicate features or slim frame beneath his arcane clothes. As Hoseok’s fearful gaze took in the belittling fire in his eyes he clenched his fists and tried to hold back his biting insults. He could not believe he’d saved that spoilt Prince’s life. He could not believe he had been weak enough for just a moment to betray what his grandfather taught him - to have sympathy for a golden crested Royal -

Hoseok stopped.

He stopped staring at Prince Im, for something moved behind him.

There was a man stood behind Changkyun. Poised on the tips of his toes as if ready to take flight, built like a delicate bird and hidden almost from view, he was like nothing Hoseok had ever seen.

He had blue eyes.

Hoseok had dealt with many types of people who trawled through his stables, from strange preachers to Highland hunters to men covered in needlework ink patterned into their skin, but never had he seen a man with blue eyes and skin so pale it was almost porcelain.

The stranger glowed even when hidden from light. Pale skin fit startlingly white hair that framed a flat face and ice-like eyes. There was no pigment in his body nor any build to his frame and all his skin was covered. From the silk of his gloved hands and collar that extended to his chin, there was not a drop of exposure in sight. Pinned to his simple coat was a small blue piece of fabric that Hoseok recognised as the flag of mourning worn only when a loved one dies. Beneath that was a similar one in the colour snow, and then came his Crest - silver and in the shape of a six-spoked snowflake.

Hoseok had never seen blue eyes before. Who was such a strange looking man? Why had Hosek never heard of his existence through whispered marketplace rumours? He could not stop staring at the white shadow with the snow coloured hair until the Princegaurd cleared his throat and he jumped back to focus on the King and Queen.

The ice blue eyes echoed in his mind even as he looked away.

The sharp gazes of the five Royals made him feel small. Insignificant. He meant nothing to them. Behind them, lined up in submission with hands clasped and heads hung, were scribes, speakers and advisors. They hovered in the shadows just out of reach, not allowed centre stage when the Royals exercised total control.

These were the monarchs who had started the war that killed his father.

The thought filled him with anger.

He would gladly pay with his life to have the whole castle burned down around them.

The Princeguard cleared his throat once again and Hoseok jumped, wide eyes flickering to the stone ground before he lowered himself into a shaky bow.

"Your Majesty." he choked out, all pretence of anger dissolving into fear. He didn't belong here. He needed to leave.

Nerves churned in his stomach. If it hadn’t been for the anger thrumming under his skin or bleeding into his clenched fists Hoseok might have thrown up just by the Royals cold, unflinching stares. They were statues. Marble. Carved from the rock of a thousand years ago, unfeeling, inhuman.

Just as the stable boy had begun contemplating his chances of surviving bolting for the weighted wooden doors with his wrists still bound the King shifted in his chair. With his movement came the rustle of his deer fur pelt and the crown on his head glinted almost as coldly as his eyes.

"Changkyun,” he began slowly. A gruff dirt-like voice accompanied his unreadable stare as he surveyed the nervous stable boy in front of him. “Why have you brought this man to me? I sent you out to encourage the people to give gold for your marriage ceremony, not bring commonfolk into my home."

"I did not wish to bring him, father,” Changkyun replied smoothly. It was the first time Hoseok had heard him speak. His voice was as plush as his father's, deep and jewel-like and poised with each syllable, almost like the feeling of fingertips dragged over velvet. “Circumstances forced it."

"Your Majesty," Hyunwoo’s voice rolled like a gentle wave above the crackle of wood burning and he bowed to the King before he spoke. "This man saved your son, his Highness’, life. Some cloaked assassin attempted to shoot an arrow into his heart as we congregated in the towns centre during our request for funds."

A gasp.

From The Second Prince, who had glanced over to his step-brother in shock as the sound left his lips. The white shadow’s gaze shot up to stare at the back of Prince Ims head and his ice eyes glittered with fear.

The King had no reaction.

Strange, thought Hoseok. Should a father not have more concern for his son's wellbeing?

“He swung from the heavens like a white-winged raven and lodged a dagger into the man’s chest,” Hyunwoo continued in his low, calm voice. “It was from at least a hundred strides away. His aim was impeccable.”

Hoseok gaped openly at the man addressing the King. Hyunwoo was almost _favouring_ him. He felt bitter about his treatment in the carriage but found it hard to be mad at the Princeguard who was now advocating for his life despite his harsh words.

"Changkyun?” The King turned to face his son. “Is this true?"

"I suppose,” the Prince muttered, tone stained with spite. For some reason he refused to meet anybody’s concerned gaze, taken to staring at the stone floor instead as the firelight flickered over his delicate features.

"The man who tried to kill the Prince was one of them, Your Majesty," Hyunwoo said gravely.

“He had the Hunter Crest?”

“Our knights confirmed it when they removed the body.”

"That is troubling. Their confidence is growing." Languid movements characterised the Kings limbs he turned his hardened gaze to Hoseok. “And so, you. What is your name, child?"

The commoner bristled.

"Hoseok," he replied, perhaps a little quickly, but he justified it as retaliation. "Lee Hoseok. And I ain’t no child, I'm twenty four."

Silence.

Hoseok’s stomach churned at the echo of his own voice and the shuffling of Knights behind him.

“I can understand him.” the Second Prince spoke for the first time. His voice was strangely pitched and carried the leaden weight of the mountainous dialect. “I would have thought understanding such uncivilization impossible.”

“Be quiet, Kihyun,” Prince Im retaliated quietly. “At least his teeth are real.”

“His teeth may be real but at least I know what a bath is,” Kihyun’s gaze caught on the blood of Hoseok’s tunic and he shuddered.

The King held up his hand and the brother’s bickering fell silent. His gaze felt like a hundred horses trampling Hoseok’s lungs underfoot, leaving him to disregard the Prince’s spoilt taunting in favour of his own tumultuous stomach.

“What is your occupation?” The crowned man asked, power reverberating in every word.

“I run the stables for my grandfather, we house travellers on the western pathway,” Hoseok replied. The sound was too loud in the large throne room, abrasive, dragging it’s lilted speech across the polished stone floors. He was not used to such deafening quiet when he spoke. “I find other work too when I can, at the dock or at sea. At fourteen I spent a summer fishing all down the Hangsan, and at sixteen was paid to join a hunting expedition through the Eoduun Forest.”

The second Prince - Kihyun, as his name had been spoken - cocked his head to the side in curiosity. "He's skilled."

"He's poor," Changkyun said dismissively.

"I've always said the only currency you lack is brains, Changkyun."

"And I've always said that brains won't win a war."

"Enough!" The King raised his voice and the boom was enough to leave Hoseok shaking in his hateful boots. "Enough, you two. This boy is useful, is he not?"

"Father-"

"He has seen too much, Changkyun,” The King said firmly and Hoseok shifted uncomfortably at the lack of acknowledgement. Invisible in a war between words, it seemed he had left his wit and charm in the carriage where he’d been gagged.

"I do not care what he knows," Prince Im said petulantly. “The whole kingdom now knows I was in danger. Are we going to bring them all to the castle, too? Fill the hallways with the smell of sweat and dirt and commonfolk blood?”

“He does bleed an awful lot,” Prince Kihyun mused to himself.

“If he dripped blood on my carriage I will have him hanged,” Changkyun muttered.

The King's glare was now a narrow one. Judging. Unyielding in its quiet ferocity, it reminded Hoseok of his summer hunting at sixteen, where every night was spend in fear of a lion just waiting to pounce.

"How much do you earn a day, Hoseok?"

The stable boy shrugged, brow knitting together in confusion. "Enough for bread. Usually two Piks, occasionally three or four. My grandfather injured his leg in the war and cannot work so I must feed him and my mother with my wage and scrounge what I can.”

A beat passed. It was clear the Royals found his meagre livings somewhat laughable by the upturn of Prince Im’s lips and the curious smile echoed on Prince Kihyun’s sly face.

"He talks as if food is currency," Kihyun mused to the other Royals and Hoseok shot him a murderous stare that only earned him a humiliating chuckle. Briefly, he noticed how the white shadow lingering behind Prince Im did not react in any way at all, practising silence as if it were an art.

"You killed a man for my son," The King said suddenly.

Thick air dug its claws into Hoseok’s throat and made his heart stutter. “Yes, your majesty.”

“It was not a question. Have you ever killed a man before, Lee Hoseok?”

“No,” the stable boy gulped. His hands trembled in their bindings. “I ain’t a violent person. I don’t like- like hurting people. At all.”

“If that is the case, why did you save my son?”

Silence.

All of the Royals, The King, The Queen, the white shadow and the red raven stared at him, blank but curious, gemstone eyes and pale faces bored as they surveyed the man at the bottom of the steps.

Prince Im, however, did not meet his gaze.

He was staring into the distance, hazel eyes fixated on some spirited spot between the soaring ceiling and flickering orange fires. His startlingly dark hair fell over a clenched jaw and the delicate curves of his poised shoulders were tense.

There was a scuff on his arm from the skid along the stone floor. His Crest - an extravagantly complex design of silver and interwoven gold complete with a faceted diamond - showed the blooming flower of a Thistle with the thorns curled in a loose circle.

Delicate petals, dangerous thorns.

The longer Hoseok watched him, the more he noticed.

There was a tremor in his downturned lips. A gleam over the anger of his eyes. Something hidden just below the surface of perfect posture and pinched face that told of fear and youth and uncertainty.

“I couldn’t let him die,” he murmured, words drifting through the silent throne room, an aching, throbbing reminder of what had just occurred.

For a brief moment Prince Im’s eyes flickered to meet Hoseok’s and they glistened with something more than firelight.

“There are not many people who would have been able to save my son, my only heir,” said the King gravely. “You are a diamond among the rough. Your skillset, bravery and your chivalry are unlike other commonfolk. It would be my pleasure to extend an invitation of permanent employment in the castle to you.”

Hoseok snapped his gaze back to the King. "Pardon, your majesty?"

“Father, that’s absurd!” Prince Changkyun’s exclamation echoed Hoseok’s surprise, as did the ripple of discontent among the procession of knights behind him.

"Our stable owner has just left for the Highlands, he will not return for a year. I was expecting a replacement to turn up this morning but unfortunately his procession got ambushed on the Northern slip and he perished along with his crew," the crowned man explained. His unsettling gaze never left Hoseok’s bloodied face. "You would be paid well, one Drachen a week, and your residence would be in the servants quarters of the palace.”

“One Drachen a week?” He spluttered. Shock flooded his system and the throb of his cheek briefly bled into hope.

That amount of money was unimaginable to Hoseok. Beyond anything he had ever known. No amount of creativity could bring to his mind what a Drachen would even look like when held against his calloused palm. With that amount of gold he could buy his house three times over, could stock their empty cabinets with enough food to remove the layer of dust and cobwebs for a whole year and fill the air with the fresh scent of baked bread.

He could finally buy his mother the dress she deserved. Cherry blossom pink, with frills at the edges and a bonnet just like her wedding one.

It would mean being around Royals - serving them, living beneath their scornful gaze and luxurious feasts. But surely it would be worth it, if he could stop his mother's stomach from growling before she slept? If he could give his grandfather peace of mind in his late years?

Hoseok hated the Royals, but he supposed he hated being poor even more.

"Father, you talk nonsense,” Prince Im’s dismissive voice jerked him from his thoughts. “This boy has not been trained in etiquette, it would be improper to house him under our roof."

"Manners can be taught, Changkyun. Unfortunately you always missed those lessons.” Prince Kihyun’s snide comment descended upon the throne room like the deadly rumble of storm.

Prince Im's jaw tightened and his haze grew harder than stone.

“I apologise, brother,” he said stiffly. “It is terribly unfortunate that I was not born in the mountains where little boys are taught to cut off their wives tongues before they are taught to say please.”

The final word echoed in the stone room. The tension grew thick, thicker than Hoseok could cut, and bunched around his chest as he watched Kihyun’s raven like features turn in anger to his step-brother and the Queen’s eyes flicker down to the floor. It seemed Prince Im had struck an open injury amongst the company.

“Enough, boys,” the King said wearily. “I am too old for high pitched squabbles. Stay and be quiet or return to your rooms."

"But-"

"May I remind you this child saved your life today, Changkyun? Or have I done such a terrible job of raising you that gratitude forsakes you?" The regal man’s voice grew frustrated with his petulant son and Prince Im seemed to throw his nose up further at the scolding. Hoseok observed curiously how the Queen, in all her delicate, silent beauty, gently lay a small hand on the Kings knee. The small contact was enough to diffuse the anger pulling taught at his ageing body, and, after only a moment, the crowned man's face settled into calm indifference and he addressed Hoseok once again. "The only condition of your employment would be silence. Nothing about this day or any other day must leave these castle walls. You must remember - the penalty for treason is death.”

“I am no traitor, your Majesty,” Hoseok said earnestly.

"Then it is done.” The King gave a nod to the Princeguard Hyunwoo who proceeded to stride forward and slip the knot binding his wrists with a smooth gloved manoeuver. His wrists burned from the rough rope and he rubbed at the red marks with a grimace. “Return home, Hoseok, and a procession will come to collect you when the morning dew has dried and the sun teases the horizon of sleep. Do not pack, we will provide you with all you need,” The King turned to his son and Hoseok would be a fool to miss the pain in each of his words. “As for you Changkyun, you may not leave this castle again. Not until it is safe."

Changkyun’s piercing hazel eyes fixed on Hoseok below him with disgust obvious in the horrible wrinkle of his nose. "Of course father,” he said, lips curling up in distaste. “I would not have it any other way.”

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

The sun had long slipped below the horizon and left the kingdom to hazy moonlit darkness by the time Hoseok made it back home. The single carriage had dropped him off along the western pathway to his house and, after two obviously irritated Knights had untied his hands once again and pushed him onto the ground, he walked the silent pathway back to his home and entered as quietly as he could.

Upon seeing his mother waiting by the lit candle on the table, knees pulled up to her chest and nightgown exposing goosebumped skin, Hoseok felt as if he could have cried in relief.

“Hoseok,” his mother smiled wistfully, not looking up from the flame she focused on. “You are finally back. I was waiting. Did you know the birds continue even when it is night? Strange. They are almost as loud as the fire.”

Hoseok’s stomach twisted at his parent’s lack of lucidity.

“Mother,” he said softly, not moving from the doorway. “I have a job.”

“You always have jobs, son.”

“No ma, this is.. This is different,” the stable boy took a deep breath and focused his voice. His wrists ached and cheek stung. “I won’t be home a lot. I- it’s in the castle. I’m being taken in as a stable boy and so I’m gonna live there now.”

His mother looked up at him in confusion and her hand fluttered to her thin stomach.

“Will you still bring me bread?” she whispered.

“Of course. Of course, ma, always,” Hoseok rambled, lunging forward in reverence to take her fragile hands for fear of breaking her. He stroked the delicate skin with his thumb and looked up at his mother's face. “Grandfather will give you food most days but… but I’m gonna make it better for us, okay? I can get you any type of bread you want, any food. New clothes too, and a bed. I’ll make it better for us. I’ll work hard.”

“Your cheek,” his mother said suddenly and Hoseok froze when fingers prodded at the blood on his face. “Son, what’s this? What happened? This’ll scar for sure.”

Hoseok sucked in a shuddering breath. This was always the worst part - when she returned for a moment, just a few seconds, and the dreams woven in her head receded to show him concern. The shortest time passed in which her eyes focused on him in lucidity, wide and worried and intelligent, and Hoseok allowed himself to be suspended in the interaction for as long as his aching heart would allow.

“It's nothing, ma. I'll be okay,” Hoseok breathed.

“My child..” his mother crooned, letting the man lean into her hand as if he were five years old, but then an owl sounded outside and her delicate hand jerked backwards. She blinked. Once. Twice. Then her lips settled into an unfocused smile once again.

Hoseok’s heart ached.

He tried to remind himself that walking into the lions den with the very people who had caused his mother’s condition was the best thing to save her. It had to be.

“Oi, son!”

Hoseok scrambled to his feet at the shout of his Grandfather accompanied by the heavy pad of his metal leg as he entered the hut with a bow on his shoulder and arrows in his hand.

“Grandfather-” he began quickly.

“I heard some commonfolk kid with brown hair and eyes swooped in like a bird today and saved the goddamn Prince’s life,” the old man said, slinging the weapon from his shoulders and dropping it on the table with a clatter. “What did I tell you about Royals, eh son? What have I always said?”

“Grandfather, I can explain,” Hoseok rushed into speaking. “I didn’t mean to, It was an accident, I couldn’t- there was this man in a cloak and- and he was pointing this hunting bow right at him, I couldn’t walk away, I had to do something-”

His rambling was cut off by a warm embrace.

His grandfather smelt of wood ashes and fodder and the burn of metal horseshoes, of muck hay and gentle dusk and the muted brown hues that enclosed the small space of their house with a herbal tea clutched between cold fingers. It was a comforting aroma, one that sent him back to childhood, and the stable boy found himself sinking into the scent as the day's events flooded his tired mind.

“So how much you gettin’ paid in that dirty castle then, eh?” his Grandfather said softly, stroking his arm as he pulled back from the hug.

“A Drachen each week,” Hoseok choked out.

A smile broke out on the weathered man's face and he patted the youngers back with eyes shaped like crescent moons. “You do good there, yeah? Keep your wits about you. Don’t be getting all Royal on me or I’ll kick you out myself. Remember who the enemy is and you’ll be fine.”

Hoseok frowned as his grandfather moved to kiss his mothers head while she stared vacantly into the candle flame. “Who is the enemy, pa?”

“The rich.”

“We’ll be rich soon, pa,” Hoseok attempted a joke and the quip caused the old man to grin in amusement.

“Then maybe we’re the enemy, eh?” he chuckled and the sound brought comfort to Hoseok the way nothing else could. His Grandfather mirrored his comforting smile and for a moment, the stable boy thought maybe, just maybe, he had done the right thing saving Prince Ims life that day.

They came for him in a Royal carriage an hour before sunset the next day, just like they told him in the castle.

The towering item of gold and silver and precious gems rolled into the small clearing outside of his house pulled by four magnificent white steeds drowned in tassles and golden-green blankets. Having been awake for hours tending to his own mares for the last time, the comparison of his brown-coated standards and these magnificent creatures was startling and settled apprehension deep in Hoseok’s gut. For a moment he felt unworthy - as if his commonfolk hands should not be near horses that cost more than his house and land put together - but he was quick to shake the thought from his head. Only Royals had that attitude to those of lower birth. Hoseok refused to owe them anything.

Pressing a last kiss to his mothers greying hair as she shivered in the doorway despite the weak sunlight and offering a final prayer to the altar outside his house, Hoseok’s chest constricted with fear at the sight of the four knights and their sheathed swords who had come to collect him. He could not help but feel conflicted. Was he doing the right thing? Could he leave his mother and ageing grandfather alone?

Surely it had to be worth the money? Surely it was the only way to feed them properly?

Hoseok could not afford to be scared. Despite the cold nature of the Royals the imposing stone walls of the castle he had been dragged into bound and gagged, the stable boy could not afford to be scared.

There were no belongings in his hands for he had nothing to take. His mother and Grandfather had to live alone until he had his first week of pay (the thought alone was enough to prickle his skin in guilty anticipation - a whole Drachen, all for himself?). Just as he was steeling himself for setting foot into the golden carriage voluntarily, his Grandfather pulled him into a tight hug and shielded his mouth from the royal procession.

“I’ll miss you, son,” his gruff voice said. “Visit often. I want to hear about it all.”

“I will Grandfather,” Hoseok reassured him, allowing himself to relish in the comforting embrace for longer than a man should. The old man pulled back to pat him on the cheek and then adjust the silver crest glinting on his chest.

“Don’t trust them,” he whispered, and then he was gone, stepping back to take Hoseok’s mother under his arm and wave him goodbye.

As the golden carriage pulled away from his small hut home, he felt strangely uneasy about his grandfather's caution, unable to focus much on the longing ache of watching his mother's’ grey hair disappear around the dirt path corner.

The journey through the Middleground village in the golden carriage was far worse the second time. During the first, Hoseok had been taken by force, bound and gagged as the horses pulled him through the valley of bustling buildings and up the steep hill to the castle. Now all the stable boy could do was swallow around the lump of guilt building in his throat at the sight of his home. He saw the vendors selling silk garments for four Sophers a dress, smelt the familiar aroma of sea salt, horse and baking bread, compared the dark hair of the noble knights to the ashy tones of commonfolk, and the dread settled deep in his gut. Why did it feel as if he was turning his back on his home? He needed to provide for his family - but was the luxury of the castle worth the anger at the Royals?

They rolled to a stop just as the sky darkened enough to bathe the castle in the glow of hung torches. At night the building was an imposing wall of darkness, and even as he was unloaded from the silk cushions and encouraged to follow, Hoseok could not help the fear in his bones. A castle was no place for people like him.

The indifferent knights led him through back passages of the castle as if trying to avoid all people at any cost. Occasionally Hoseok caught a glimpse of nobles dripping with velvets or jewels as they congregated in alcoves or walked arm in arm. At one point, a pale servant caught sight of him as she hurried with a bucket of water clasped in slim arms, and Hoseok could only stare as she gasped at his skin and spilt water over her brown dress.

Even the servants seemed startled by his status, it seemed.

Eventually, when Hoseok was considerably lost and could not tell left from right, the Knights came to a stop in front of a wooden door in a cold corridor. There were many of the same lining the walls, each framed by a burning torch and the gentle drip of water, and Hoseok came to realise that these were rooms for those who worked in the castle.

A room.

They had given him a room.

He entered it cautiously, not quite believing the Knights when they gestured wordlessly to the closed door. The room was low-ceilinged and heavy in its design, almost claustrophobic despite its generous size, with the cold walls, lack of a window and dark tapestry hanging from the rafter pressing down on his heavy heart. It smelt of damp and also of perfume, deep rose and heavy must filling his nostrils.

But none of that mattered to Hoseok.

For, directly in the middle of the room, complete with a green and gold canopy and baubled pillars that rose almost to the ceiling, was a bed.

A bed.

There was a real bed. Draped in a cotton overthrow and a quilted blanket. Decorated with two grey pillows and framed by four big posts.

His own bed.

He couldn’t help but feel… mad. As much as the awe that he held for such expensive garnishes, the fact one family could provide such commodities to a man they were employing as a low-level stable boy was horrifying. Hoseok had slept on the floor for as long as his memory existed. Why were they allowed spare beds, and he couldn’t even own one?

When Hoseok turned around to ask the Knights just what he should do now, the words died on his tongue as quickly as they had formed. The men had left him alone.

The door closed with a creak deafening in the silence. He bolted it out of indignance - everything about the situation only led to simmering hatred in his gut. He did not think he would last a week in this godforsaken castle when luxury was merely the norm.

Padding over to the bed, Hoseok allowed his hand to tentatively touch the elegant drapes surrounding it. Was all this extra fabric just for decoration? Could the King afford such frivolous cloth when Hoseok had never had more than a blanket or two?

The firelight glinted on a metal object.

His whole body seized up in fear.

There, lying elegantly upon his pillow as if a delicate hand had placed it there when he had turned away, was the knife he had thrown to save the Prince’s life.

The knife he had used to kill a man.

He felt strangely hollow about the entire ordeal. Murder was not an exceptionally common practice, but it was rarely frowned upon. A family of a woman whose husband remained unloyal may string the man up in front of his mistress and slit his throat. A feud between businesses or across borders may be healed with the gentle dispatch of an enemy. The Five Year War with the Golden Nation had been a time where men were encouraged to kill, so ingrained in Hoseoks mind that, if he were to be honest, a dead man was of as much use as one alive.

Hoseok just never thought it would have been him.

Gingerly, Hoseok picked up the knife wrapped in red leather and carved with his initials and placed it down on the side table. A throb of repulsion echoed in his chest and he swallowed around his dry tongue.

He had owned that knife since he was thirteen years old, but it didn’t look the same anymore.

A quick look revealed the strangely long shelves in the corner of the room to be stocked with carefully folded tunics, leggings, slacks and belts, but Hoseok could not bring himself to change. He did not wish to remove his clothes and wear foreign ones worth more than his life. It would feel as if he was tearing his own skin off to replace it with a layer that felt far too above his own self.

With a breath of hesitation, Hoseok picked up the strange puffy quilt and allowed himself to crawl under the covers.

He could have cried.

The bed was the most comfortable surface he had ever lay upon. His sore muscles sunk into the underbelly, each joint swollen from rigging work or callous reddened from the stables was eased into relaxation as the airy blankets fell over his body and the feather-filled pillows cushioned his head with down. It was as if he were floating on a cloud.

Hoseok had never slept on a bed before.

The stable boy had never known what it was like to not lie on the hard wooden floor. Did not know how it felt to have the cold draft blocked by stone. Did not know if his muscles would ever stop aching from hours of thin worn blankets and uncomfortable positions.

Hoseok thought of his mother, still sleeping on the same hard wood floors he had grown up on. He thought of his grandfather who resided next to her, in an old wooden chair so as to not disturb his leg. He hoped his grandfather had the foresight to take Hoseok’s blankets and cushion his mother and bring them a little more peace.

The moment he was first paid, he would run back home and purchase them both beds. A frame each, his grandfather taking his old room, along with soft blankets and a pillow.

His grandfather's harsh words echoed in his ears.

_Don’t trust them._

As his eyes drooped and sore body dripped into unconsciousness, Hoseok swore an oath to himself that he would never trust the Royals. Not Prince Kihyun and his raven-red eyes, not the white shadow with the icy gaze, not the gruff King or his regal Highlander wife. Not even Hyunwoo, who had taken him into the castle and advocated for his position as staff.

Especially not Prince Im.

Prince Im, with his hazel eyes and hair so dark it echoed the night sky without stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> charlie updating after only a week? what strange new world have we entered?  
> thanks to the two (2) people who have read this before it was published ily  
> let me know what u think!! thank u for reading ♡


	3. III

When the sharp knocks echoed on the door and bounced off the cold stone walls, Hoseok’s eyes snapped open and he scrambled out of bed in panic. Unsteady after slipping from such a height of sleep, he grasped the bedside knife in one hand, spun into a kneel and took stance with the other. 

Adrenaline throbbed through his veins. Knocks at the door only meant one thing to Hoseok. The war had reached his doorstep. The front line where his father had burned had fallen. The Sun Warriors were here in all their violent cruelty ready to blaze his entire house and his family inside it -

The knocks sounded again.

Hoseok paled.

His predicament was worse than the onset of war being brought to his shambled doorstep.

No longer curled up on the hard wooden floors of his childhood, his aching limbs had eased their laboured pains during sleep and his neck no longer spasmed when he stretched it.

He was in the castle.

The wrinkled covers of the bed he slept in burned holes in his perplexed vision. He had slept in that bed? The blankets had not even been needed to keep his shivering body warm due to the endlessly burning torches of the walls. It was strange to reside in a place in which silks and fabrics were used as canopy decoration and not the thin line between life or death from bone-chilling cold.

After a moment to grudgingly stretch out his aching limbs and muss his corkscrewed hair, Hoseok’s confusion morphed into shock when the gentle knocks echoed once more.

Without hesitation - for the stable boy saw no need - he padded over and swung open the heaven wooden door by the crested metal handle.

It was the white shadow.

Stood in front of his door (Was it his door? Could the room be called his own?) was the man of snow who had hovered behind the Prince in the vast throne room. Besides the brief encounter of saving Prince Im’s life, Hoseok had never been so close to a bestowed Royal and he found it particularly baffling. He was at a loss of what to do, with such an overwhelming presence blotting out all background merely a horse length away. 

The man could not be real. White hair, white skin, eyes so light they looked like glass during the weak winter morning sun. A light aura of dust seemed to drift along the haze in front of him and make him seem wholly unnatural - the lack of pigment in both his skin and spotless clothes was ethereal and his Crest was the unnatural silver six-pronged snowflake.

Hoseok gawked.

“Who are  _ you _ ?” he blurted out. Perhaps it was rude. He didn’t care.

The Royal’s pale lips pulled into an amused smile.

“My name is Prince Lee Minhyuk of the Northern Territories,” he said quietly and offered a small bow. Hoseok watched him bend at the waist with wary suspicion. No man of his standing should submit to commonfolk. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lee Hoseok of the Stallion Crest.”

Hoseok frowned. He did not like this man knowing his name.

“You, too,” he mumbled, clearly mystified.

The Northern Prince gestured with a gloved hand into the room behind him. “May I enter?”

“I… guess?” Hoseok watched as he almost seemed to float across the floor with gentle steps as if the room were his possession. “Why are you here?” he asked bluntly after a moment of hesitation.

“The Prince has sent me to show you around your new quarters,” Minhyuk smiled and signalled the room with a polished glove. He had the strangest accent Hoseok had ever heard - working around each syllable as if he had never been taught the correct sounds, vowels dragging on and consonants muffled by tongue. Where was this strange, white-haired man from? Why were his eyes and skin almost the same colour? “I am to be your companion during these first few weeks of your stay in order to teach you manners.”

“I don’t need no manners,” Hoseok rebuffed.

“Do not,” Minhyuk’s lips quirked in amusement. “I do not need any manners.”

“Whatever,” Hoseok said. The blue of Minhyuk’s eyes looked like glass in the firelight - so watery they were almost nothing.

“This is where you will be spending your nights while working in the Great Castle,” The Prince continued not unkindly. “Since the King detailed permanent employment, you are expected to live here, treat this room as if it is yours and yours alone.” 

For a moment Hoseok hesitated, debating whether or not to trust Minhyuk. He had been comfortable hidden behind the spoilt Prince only the day before, but something about standing eye level with the white shadow, something about his gentle nature and eyes that blinked unevenly lulled Hoseok into a sense of security. This man was no danger to him, surely? He had not even been given a proper place to stand amongst the Royals and did not speak a word during court. If anything, Hoseok felt as if the Northern Prince was genuinely here to help - an ideology directly against everything he had ever been taught.

Surely he could risk one question, right?

“What are those?” he jerked his head to the folded fabrics on a set of shelves, trying to sound nonchalant despite his caution of the Royal.

“Garments,” replied Minhyuk. He seemed happy Hoseok had chosen to ask. “You are free to wear them whenever although they are designed for use in the stables. If you ever leave the castle you are required to wear Royal Attire as a representative, but since you need permission to leave the walls, I doubt you shall be visiting home any time soon-”

Hoseok wasn’t listening

“I like your eyes,” he said suddenly, cutting off the other’s speech.

At the compliment Minhyuk broke out into a smile so blinding, so beautiful, Hoseok swore his heart stopped beating. It was so that the white of his teeth and crinkle of his eyes echoed the reflection of sunlight on the snowy mountaintops of Highland. 

“Thank you, commoner,” said the Northern Prince, cheeks dusting with a light rose that Hoseok assumed was blush for his pale skin before he gestured to the open door. “Speaking of stables, I have been instructed to show you your new workplace. Would you care to follow?”

“Well no, not really,” Hoseok said.

For a moment the Northern Prince seemed taken aback at the quip, eyes wide and mouth parted in surprise, and then the snowy smile transformed into a peal of tinkling laughter that echoed the wind through stripped winter branches.

“Oh Hoseok, you  _ are _ delightful,” he giggled and whisked himself away through the open door without another word, leaving Hoseok alone and disgruntled.   
  


It only took a moment of lonely silence before the stable boy groaned dramatically and followed him out the door.

Minhyuk seemed entertained when he caught up with him down the long corridor.

“So you decided to follow, then?” he teased. Were Royals meant to be so casual in their quips? Minhyuk was defying every expectation Hoseok had of the spoilt, cruel ruling men. Shouldn’t he be casting down his existence and cursing his greed?

Hoseok ignored his question. “Why don’t you have attendants?” he said, confused as to why the man walked alone when Prince Im had been shown to have many waiting by his side.

“I am not allowed,” The Prince said simply.

What did that mean?

Hoseok decided not to ask.

Minhyuk guided him around the castle for what seemed like aeons. He knew every single inch, could wind his way through hall upon hall, could date every stone set in the walls of the six hundred-year-old building.

Hoseok found himself lost after turning only two corners. Every corridor seemed to lead into three more. Every wing was intersected by two turrets, three staircases, five rooms for occasions Hoseok did not understand or care for. Hoseok could tell when they approached the noble quarters for every stone wall rose to the ceiling covered in tapestries, portraits and statues whilst the servants area had only been given torches. Minhyuk took care to point things out to him - the third kitchen, the maids commonroom, the museum of weapons from legendary battles, the music storage - it never seemed to end. Hoseok was more confused than when he had begun. His small house could fit in every single one of the spaces behind wooden doors.

Could he really survive in a place like this just to feed his family? Hoseok had fought the horror of storms at sea and survived indescribable cold in the Eoduun forest, but never had he been faced with the overwhelming unfamiliarity of luxury and comfort. He was not prepared to fight such an enemy.

Wariness settled deep in his bones and he eyed every stoic guard with suspicion.

They did the same to him. Trust was not a common commodity within these walls, especially with Hoseok’s hair and skin and eyes and dirtied clothing giving away his background as easily as if he had screamed it from every window of the castle.

Eventually each direction blurred into obscurity as Hoseok found himself less focused on the opulence of the grandeur castle and more on the strange way Minhyuk spoke. Occasionally the Prince seemed to stop and frown, staring at an object as if attempting to recall a name, or throwing word order around as he talked. 

“So.. the whole Prince thing...” Hoseok ventured a question as he watched a collection of modestly dressed servants weave in a line down the hall carrying buckets of steaming water. “He sent you to me? To.. to do what exactly? And why d’you gotta listen to him?”

“I belong to him. I do as he says,” Minhyuk’s accented voice was chipped as he nodded to the servants who offered a somewhat fearful bow in return. “And he has told me to teach you manners, stable boy, so I will.”

“What do you mean, you  _ belong _ to the Prince?” Hoseok wrinkled his nose, obvious repulsion staining his voice. “You can’t belong to anybody. You’re a person.”

Minhyuk laughed - that light, airy laugh that reminded Hoseok of the gentle fall of snowflakes against skin, whisper quiet like he was afraid of making noise - and his eyes twinkled with amusement when they turned the corner. “Do not fret, Hoseok. It means I am a refugee under his protection. Not the King’s, not the countries, but Prince Changkyun’s and Changkyun’s alone.” 

“A refugee? From where?”

_ "Eol-eum-tahl." _

“What?”

“I come from  _ Eol-eum-tahl," _ Minhyuk spoke as if lulling a scared animal to sleep - his voice toeing the edge of sleep at all moments. “It is North of here. Further North than Highland, above where the white sky touches the white ground and the water is frozen all year round.” All of a sudden the Prince turned with a hardened gaze and motioned with his gloved hands. “Stand straight, stable boy. You must be like us.”

Hoseok ignored him and pressed on. “Why are you the Prince’s refugee? Why not the kings? How long have you been here? I’ve never heard of your home before, not even working with travellers.”

“It is very far North, and we were a quiet people.” 

“Were?”

“You ask a lot of questions for a man who cannot speak properly.”

Hoseok opened his mouth and then closed it again at the scolding. He scurried after the Prince when he turned on his heel and began descending cold steps lined by cramped walls and mossy corners.

The stable boy could hardly contain his gasp when the claustrophobic passageway opened up into possibly the largest stable Hoseok had ever seen.

It stretched for as far as his eyes could see. The wood that constructed each spacious stall was painted gold and embezzled with small trinkets of decorational corners. There were two rows of stalls back to back running down the centre, and then one lining each opposite wall.

Four lanes of horses.

That was a lot of horses.

At least it still smelled of stables, thought Hoseok with a grimace - like metal and manure and dried hay.

“Stable work in the castle has always been praised. It is a higher position than most servants - while dirty, horses are groomed for prestige,” Minhyuk said, stepping tentatively into the place filled with the soft clang of horse hooves on stone. His white attired directly contrasted the dirt floor and hay piles by the wheelbarrows and rack of at least forty bridles. “We have twenty Iserian stallions, Eight grand Freisans as well as Bresans, Tanlocks and Harpers.”

  
“Harpers?” Hoseok breathed in surprise while surveying the many creatures. He knew the breed from the stories his grandfather had told - of the prize steeds purebred in the wide expanse of Plains between the Southern Sun Kingdom and the Eodunn forest. Indescribably expensive and heavenly to mount.

“Indeed, Harpers,” Minhyuk smiled at his shock. “They are my favourite. They ride like molten gold. We have seven here and expect you to take good care of them.”

Seven Harpers, as well as at least forty other stallions? There were too many for one man's work. Was he, alone, really to do what was expected to maintain these pure breeds? Perhaps he would fail within the first week and be sent home without punishment. The thought was both a relief and a fear

Minhyuk watched the awed stable boy as he inspected the tacking rack, running his hands over the grooming wall, weighing the brush in his hand and twisting his lips into a bitter smile at the feeling of embedded rubies in the horse brush. Even the  _ horse brush _ had more value than his entire house.

“Thank you. For… showing me around,” Hoseok said unexpectedly, turning back to the Prince after returning a bit to its position. Minhyuk remained quiet and Hoseok frowned. “I'm not bowing, if that’s what you're waiting for.”

Minhyuk let out a windchime laugh before settling into almost a shy smile while he picked at his gloves. “You are so strange to me, commoner. You are so unlike my people, and yet I can’t help but grow fond already.” His eyes twinkled and he offered a nod of acknowledgement. “I understand we Royals may seem spoiled and arrogant to you. I hope we can be friends despite that.”

Hoseok shrugged. “Maybe if you paid me I’ll make an effort.”

The commonfolk had been entirely joking but then the Prince made an exaggerated show of elegantly reaching into his pocket to procure a single glinting, golden coin.

“Here,” he held out the Sopher. “Don’t spend it all at once.”

Greed was quick to grip the stable boy's throat and force his mouth open in surprise. That one sliver of gold could feed his family for a month. if not more.

However, the commonfolk was no fool and did not trust the foreign Prince. He simply eyed the coin warily and kept his hands by his sides. “Is this a joke, Prince Minhyuk?” he asked, disbelieving that Royals were even capable of such things.

“Perhaps, stable boy Lee.” Minhyuk giggled and then, without warning, flipped the coin in the air and left Hoseok to catch it with quick reflexes.

The Sopher was heavy in his palm and Hoseok gaped at the engravings on the coin. It was indeed worth more than anything he had ever held before. And now it was  _ his. _ He didn’t even have to do anything, work anything, perform any tough labour before owning an entire Sopher. Was money so bountiful in the castle that men like Minhyuk could just give away small fortunes as a joke?

Hoseok tried to feel angry about it. Instead, he just felt overwhelmingly excited.

“I must return to court for an afternoon meeting. Will you be alright here alone, stable boy? I shall return in the evening to collect you and return you to your quarters.”

“I ain’t need no nursesitter,” Hoseok murmured, holding the Sopher up to the light in awe. “But sure. Whatever. Bye.”

Hoseok did not even notice him leaving but sure enough, the white shadow was gone when he finally looked up.

He was alone once again in a stable made of gold.

When he eventually slipped the coin into his pocket he vowed to keep it safe and give it to his family upon return. It was strangely light against his thigh as if worth nothing at all.

Finally, Hoseok began his work.

Deciding to start with inventory was probably the best idea. While it seemed there was a desk in the corner fit with ink, quill and an open book of numbers and letters, there was one problem with recording information or knowing what the past stable owner had written. Hoseok was illiterate. The only thing he could read were prices. The odd scribble of words on pages meant nothing to him.

Slowly but surely he began to categorise what was there. He had been right in his estimates - fifty-three bridles lined the walls. There were three piles of elaborate saddles and two drawers of saddle blankets. There was even a carriage connecter stuffed in the corner, next to the wide expanse of decorational helmets and blinkers laid out by the silver tasselled stirrups.

Piles of hay were scattered across the stables and Hoseok was quick to find the bags of feed in a large offshoot room by an outside water pump. 

The horses seemed docile in their stables. None of them made so much as a sigh while he took down a piece of equipment to inspect it, running his calloused hands over the nicks in the metal with a frown. He needed to polish each buckle. They were rough around the edges and looked as if they would harm the wearer.

“Good afternoon, Stable master!”

Hoseok cried out and dropped the piece of tack. It fell to the floor with a crash and the stable boy spun, alarmed and ready to fight, only to come face to face with two small boys who looked no older than nine. Dressed in tailored blue tunics and bearing the identical Crest of a coat of arms above a soaring blue taloned Eagle, the two boys had a shock of dark hair contrasting pale skin that told immediately of their noble descent. While not royals, they were influentially rich. Or at least their parents were.

“Who are you?” Hoseok asked, shock colouring his voice. The two thin boys seemed unphased by his outburst and they fidgeted on their flighty toes.

“We are the Joisen twins,” One of them said in a voice high pitched and strung. “I am Lin.”

“And I am Jae!” the other echoed.

“And we are your helpers,” finished Lin with a bow.

“We helped out the last stable master too, my Lord,” Jae said seriously. His wide grey eyes bore into Hoseok’s shocked features with an intensity only Royals could find. “He was older than you, though-”

“Had lots of wrinkles, he did!” Lin interrupted with a giggle.

“Yes, wrinkles!” Jae said earnestly. ”But now the King has informed us that you shall take over his work. It is our duty to serve you, assist you however you please.”

“We hope to be of use to you, Stable Master,” Lin nodded vigorously, and then they both fell into a co-ordinated bow in which their chubby cheeks puckered into a serious pout.

A beat passed. Hoseok stared at the young boys in utter disbelief. 

“How old are you?” he asked in quiet outrage. Did the castle really employ children as labour, when there were perfectly good men like himself who had families to provide for?

“Thirteen!” they said in unison before Jae spoke again. “We are the second sons of a twice removed nobleman's cousin. We shall have little status in court when we come of age, but work to honour our father through influence.”

Was all of Royal court politics this complex? Were all families this convoluted? Hoseok knew the Crest as something to wear with Pride of being able to take care of his family. The way these boys just held it on their small chests made it seem like something else - like a commentary on  _ status.  _ Of place.

“Okay, fine. Thats nice I guess.” Hoseok sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “Just.. I don't know. Stay there. Do what you want. Just don't bother me.”

With that he turned and picked up the bridle and inspected it again. Should he test the sizing on each muzzle? Each bridle seemed the same size, but one glance at the creatures behind him told that they were ill fitted. Why had the previous stable boy not fixed this obvious problem?

Hoseok gave another cry when ran straight into Jae stepping backwards.

Both of the young boys looked at him expectantly and he lowered the bridle.

“What?” he asked, exasperated. 

“You have to tell us what to do, Stable Master,” Lin said quietly. He seemed suddenly wary of Hoseok’s irritation. 

“Woah, woah. No titles, just call me Hoseok.” he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He could not help but feel hostile to the sons of noblemen, although he tried to force a somewhat friendly smile looking at the two boys. It had all been too much for him for so early in the morning. “You really up for anything?”

Lin nodded. “Yes, Stable Ma-”

“Hoseok,” Jae corrected Lin’s use of formalities and Hoseok tried not to laugh at how panicked he seemed. They were both rather cute, he guessed.

“Okay,” The stable boy exhaled slowly and allowed the tension to run from his feet into the dirty floor below him. This is where he belonged. His Crest told him so. He could do this. “Okay, you see all these horses here? All forty? Can you please remove all their tack -” 

“All of it?” the twins gasped in unison.

“Yes, all of it. The gold needs to be buffed and the fabric scrubbed with soap - see here? Around the edges of the front plate?” As he spoke Hoseok made his way over to the first golden stable. It contained a Freisan, white coat slightly tarnished with dirt but hair silky where it was tied into five knots down its Crest. The animal was docile and allowed the stable boy to take it’s soft head gently in his hand and turn it to the side where he ghosted his fingers over a nick in his skin that blossomed pink and red with irritation. “They have been rubbed raw. Remove all the tack and gently wash the irritations with some mild soap. Clean what gold on the tack you can with polish, leave the bits out and I’ll find a way to adjust them to fit the bridles. While Jae does that, Lim, can you start taking the horses along the Eastern side out to graze? I’ll clear their stables and set down new hay. It hasn’t been done in a while. We can rotate for today until we put them to bed tonight.”

After he had finished speaking, his brow knit together upon finding both young boys looking at him with awe filled grey eyes.

“What?” he asked, perplexed.

“Nothing stable Ma- I mean, Hoseok!” they chorused, and then hurried to follow their respective orders.

At least they followed directions, Hoseok thought with a sigh, before picking up a heavy shovel and draping a towel around his neck. There was a lot of work to do and he could not afford to dawdle the day away.

The labour was intensive but Hoseok did not mind. Since his near-death experience of his childhood years, Hoseok had vowed to always be strong - mentally and physically. He had endured long times away from home, had worked on boats and hunting groups and even ploughed fields. Not having enough to eat meant his skin was not soft like many his age with greater money. Instead, his arms were rippled with sinewy muscle when he heaved hay bales or equipment or heavy loads. 

Unfortunately the delicate noble children did not have that luxury.

When Hoseok glanced over his shoulder to check on the two young boys, he observed Lin obviously struggling with a basket half full with sloshing, frothy water. His little legs staggered and back bent painfully while he attempted to carry it to the first stall, face screwed up in determined concentration.

Hoseok hesitated before setting down his own work and hurrying over to help him.

“Here, let me,” he said. Lin looked up at him in surprise and dropped the bucket. A few foamy droplets of water splattered across his small frame before he scurried back a few steps and offered a small bow.

Almost as if he were afraid of Hoseok.

“Thank you, Stable Master!” he squeaked as Hoseok carried the frothy water to the nearest stall.

“Ain’t no problem,” he said gruffly, before leaving the Royal boy to continue his work.

Hoseok had never had siblings. He wondered if this is what it would be like.

As the downcast atmosphere of early morning shifted into the light lullaby of midday - none of the sun's movement reflected in the enclosed stable but felt by the dewy air on their skin nonetheless - Hoseok overheard the two boys talking as they both wrung out towels together.

“I do not think he seems that bad,” one of them murmured - Lin, perhaps? The voice was higher and statue slightly more petite.

“I am a bit scared of him,” replied the other. Hoseok paused in his act of stringing up a bridle, quiet settling around him while he strained to pick up their words.

“He seems nice, though,” Lin replied quietly. “He is nicer than previous Stable Master.”

“Our father said not to trust commonfolk, Lin,” Jae said disapprovingly, shooting his twin a black stare. ”Look at his hair! It is not like ours.”

The two children glanced over to catch Hoseok’s stare and they blushed before turning back to their work.

“Do you think he heard us?” whispered Lin.

Jae shook his head. “You know what they say about commonfolk. They only hear what they want to.”

Hoseok sighed.

Should he have expected any more?

He had been comfortable for mere moments. It was a reminder that he was not welcome here. That even children thought he was below them. However, the stable boy found he could not grow mad at the two boys - it was obvious they merely spoke what their family rehearsed around their frivolous dinner tables.

Instead, another layer of resentment built upon the hatred harboured in his gut. No words could articulate how he despised the Royals and their grand castle and petty sophers and disregard for anybody that wasn’t their own pale skinned, dark haired freaks of nature.

It was a relief when Minhyuk returned later that evening. Hoseok’s stomach was growling and his body was soaked in perspiration.

Lin and Jae seemed flustered by the presence of Minhyuk and they both scrambled to offer low bows the moment he entered. When the Northern Prince waved a gloved hand they took it as a sign of dismissal and shot Hoseok a wide eyed stare before scampering into the passageway back to the castle.

“Cute,” Minhyuk smiled while watching them go. In a strange turn of events, Hoseok found he had missed the Royal, with his elegant gloves, poised posture and strange accent. “Hungry?”

At the question Hoseok’s stomach sounded like a dying man and he laughed. “You have no idea.”

The Northern Prince led him peacefully to the servants dining room after winding through corridors Hoseok could not remember directions to. It was a long hall directly connected to a steaming, moist kitchen which billowed gentle smoke into the low ceiling area. The commoner was surprised to find it seemed rather comfortable in both design and practicality. While not as obscenely luxurious as the rooms he imagined the Royal’s dined in, the thick mahogany beams that laced across the ceiling complemented the cedar tables at which many sat and ate. The presiding atmosphere of laughter was a comfort to Hoseok ears for, despite the sounds being subdued and the colours of each person drab, their goblets were gleaming and plates full. They all had Crests just like his own - silver and gold plaits of bread, armour, a wine glass or grapevine or claws of a hound.

Slowly, however, the prickling feeling under his skin began to shift. A servant girl seemed to notice Hoseok with a gasp and nudge the woman next to her. Pairs of wide eyes swivelled to take in Hoseok’s dirtied demeanour behind Prince Minhyuk and they seemed fearful. Most of them dipped into a low bow upon seeing Minhyuk’s presence, while others stuck their head around the kitchen entrances above the sound of crashing plates and bubbling pots to blatantly stare.

Hoseok’s heart sank.

There was no comradery to be found in the people of the castle who worked hard just like him. Even those who only wore grey were above him in status. Even those who laboured over the Royals saw him as a man who had killed to infiltrate their workplace.

“Please, eat. Take as much as you please,” Minhyuk gestured towards a counter lined with steaming food.

Hoseok did not think he had ever seen so much fresh produce available for eating piled high with potatoes and boiled fruit and tumbling squares of tender meat falling from cut pies. He wondered how much would go to waste after the evening had ended. Judging by the trickling stream of people leaving at the late hour, it would be a lot. 

The Royals were wasteful and had no concept of hunger, apparently.

When Hoseok approached the counter to take a plate of food, the kitchen staff seemed to recoil and stare at his skin with scornful eyes. When Hoseok took his plate - piled high with meat, a delicacy he perhaps ate once a month, as well as seeded bread and fresh sweetapple - and attempted to slide onto a bench by a table, the woman next to him shuffled three places over and shot him a fearful look.

“What?” he spoke, exasperated. “Ain’t never seen a commoner before?”

The servant shook her head quickly and turned back to her food with fear clenched in her jaw.

That was enough. The stable boy sighed and pushed back from the table, scraping the bench against the floor and causing the company to flinch. 

“I’m eating in my room,” Hoseok snapped to Minhyuk, carrying the plate of food out of the hostile dining area.

Minhyuk hurried after him with no protest and did not comment on the commoner getting lost almost twice.

That night Hoseok ate alone in the small wooden chair placed in the corner of his new room.

The food was perhaps the most delicious he had ever tasted and left his stomach more full than it had been in years. The meat dripped with sauces that lit his taste buds on fire in overwhelming thick oil. The sticky vegetables were void of the musty dryness he was used to after buying the cheap old produce from the market on occasion. Even the sweet bread was far denser than usual - physically tiring to chew and yet exploding with the flavour of a thousand seeds that caused his mouth to water even as he swallowed.

All the stable boy could think about, however, was his mother and grandfather still eating plain bread in their hut alone.

It was for them. This was all for them.

From that moment on, Hoseok worked on a routine of late nights and early mornings. Waking before dawn meant he could steal away the first food from the dining area without catching the other servants eye, and working late prevented much of a confrontation when he took food to his quarters in the evening. It was exhausting but there was nothing much he could do. 

He was commonfolk after all. There was no place for people like him in the castle.

There was one ray of light in the sombre, unmoving castle, however.

Prince Lee Minhyuk.

Despite his bitter demeanour and scathing, jaded mind, Hoseok was quick to warm to the Northern Prince and his delicate laugh and translucent blue eyes. The stable boy did not mind his teasing laugh or white skin or even his corrections of speech. He just liked the company.

Prince Minhyuk did not act like a Royal. He acted like a friend.

On the day the Joisen twins had an engagement in court with their father and the stable boy was left alone to tend to the horses, Minhyuk decided to pay him a visit.

“Leave me alone,” Hoseok grumbled the moment he saw the white shadow hovering in the corner with his blue eyes glinting mischievously.

Minhyuk did not leave.

Hoseok sighed and stood up from where he had been scrubbing the floor. A steady drip of water cascaded from his hands and pooled in a frothy pit between the stones laid in the surface. “Please leave me alone.”

“I am here to teach you manners,” Minhyuk grinned.

Hoseok rolled his eyes and rubbed at his forehead, most likely smearing dirt across the skin. “I have no time for petty Royals today. I don’t care about manners.”

“Do not,” the Prince giggled. “I do not care about manners.”

That was enough. WIthout thinking, the stable boy grasped at the floor, spun on his heel and threw a handful of dirty straw straight at the other.

Minhyuk cried out and shielded his white attire with a shocked hand.

For a moment Hoseok’s stomach contracted watching the Royal cower in surprise. Had that been too far? Did that break some protocol that would land him in the dungeon for the rest of his miserable life?

“You commonfolk filth!” Minhyuk gasped suddenly, but the insult only caused Hoseok to burst into laughter while the Prince attempted to rub the dirt out of his tunic.

“You stupid Royal,” he teased.

“Ah!” Minhyuk glared at him but it was victorious. “I cannot be called a Royal, stable boy. My only status is refugee.”

“Then why do you insist on formalities?” Hoseok retaliated.

“I have been instructed to teach you manners!” 

“You are not doing a very good job!”

Minhyuk paused upon picking straw out of his hair to shoot him a mischievous grin. “I beg to differ, stable boy. You just said ‘are not’ instead of ‘aren’t.’”

The statement caused him to freeze in outraged surprise. Had he just elaborated his words? Had it really only taken a few days? It made his stomach twist uncomfortably. He didn’t like the idea the castle was already changing him into somebody who even  _ sounded _ rich.

“I’ve been around people like you for a single week and I already sound spoilt.” Hoseok groaned and kicked at a post of an empty stall, “I’m gonna visit home and be exiled!”

Minhyuk laughed his windlike laugh and disappeared into the corridor once again, leaving the stable boy to blow at the hair matting his forehead before continuing his hard work scrubbing.

That night Hoseok returned to his quarters exhausted and covered in dirt only to find the foreign smell of soaps and blooming floating along the air like a songbirds call.

Inside his bathroom - a small stone room connected to the bedroom and consisting only of a ceramic tub, mirror and bucket - sat multiple candles all dripping wax into gold plates.

The tub was full of pink water and had lilies floating on top.

Hoseok was quick to grab the note placed by the door and hurry out into the servants hallway. Grabbing the first person he saw - a short-statured man of about forty with a Crest detailing a needle and thread - he thrust the paper in front of his eyes and asked for him to read it.

After a moment of fearful hesitation the man spoke.

“It reads “Remember to wash under your arms and behind your ears. You commonfolk are dirty - From Minhyuk.”

Hoseok laughed in joy and hurried into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar and having to run back to shut it.

A bath.

Hoseok had never taken a bath. He had spent most of his life cleaning in the river, or dumping buckets of water on his head when it was too cold to swim.

The Royal had given him a  _ bath. _

Sinking into the water was like drifting into the gentlest sleep known to man. The scented liquid hugged each part of his body as if it were a mother comforting her son, lulling him into a drowsy state of relaxation as it washed away layers of dirt and grime that had accumulated through years of labour. It even seemed to soften the skin of his palms, drawing the wrinkled of his pads into waves over the calloused joints.

Hoseok let the water drain into the grout between the cobbled stone floor when he finally rose after what must have been an hour. The soft towels Minhyuk had provided were obviously Royal quality and glided against his skin as if he were touching a cloud.

Maybe it wasn’t all terrible, Hoseok thought while donning the soft bedclothes he was becoming accustomed too and slipping under the plush covers. Maybe, just maybe, he could work in the castle for a little bit longer. Maybe it was selfish to want things such as gold and baths and a full belly of food, but he had never experienced such wealth before and wanted to hold onto it for just a little longer.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

That night Hoseok woke to darkness.

Confused at first, still unused to the wide expanse of room that permitted the dancing shadows from the singular wall torch, it seemed as if the night air was deliberately pressing on his lungs and forcing his heart to beat at the pace of a skittering horse.

He could not remember his dream but he knew it had been unpleasant. Cold, sticky sweat caked his neck and ran its fingers down his shaking chest. The  _ hunger _ \- he could still feel it in every inch of his body, eating away at his stomach and draining all his energy. Waking up in such distress left him reaching for a comfort that wasn’t there - a dead father, a vacant mother, a grandfather who could not walk -

Hoseok threw back the covers and heaved himself out of bed.

He needed to pray. 

Middleground had no firm religion, being the central trading kingdom of the land, but the native commonfolk followed the law of the earth. Hoseok had been taught from a young age that when Giants had ruled the earth was barren. There was nothing except cracked rock and dark skies. When the first giant had died, he had left the spirit of the soil behind, the second had left the sky, the third bringing plants. It was only the fourth giant that had created life, had struck the mountains with his staff and formed rivers, had moulded humans from the very earth and given birds to the trees.

The Four spirits of the Giants still remained as the Gods they worshipped. They could be felt in the crackle of thunder or the smell before it rained. The blossom of flowers in spring or the cry of newborn birds.

The Earth Gods guided him when he was lost and gave him something to wish upon when his stomach grew empty for too long.

Hoseok had been scared to explore the castle on his own but he realised now that was foolish. Who would punish him for existing in his workplace? He had not been scared of the Royals when they had thrown him into their carriage.

He was commonfolk, and he did not follow rules.

Taking the one smouldering torch from the metal hold on the wall, Hoseok slipped out his door into the silent hallway outside. The air was cold and moist and pressed heavy on his lungs when the great slab of wood closed with a thud.

Hoseok did not quite know where he was going. He remembered how Minhyuk had led him through winding corridors and motioned to the direction of the church, but that had been during daylight, and there was no such sliver of direction in the servants corridors.

The castle at night was a strange place to wander alone. Hoseok did not think the night had ever seemed so sinister in its silence as his steps echoed on stone floor and his torch cast monstrous shadows on the wall. Every inch of the cold castle sapped the warmth from his limbs and dug deep into his bones as the haunting stillness of each empty corridor pressed on his heart.

Eventually, after much wandering with the torch lighting his way, Hoseok happened on a familiar pathway. The ceiling seemed to reach up and drag the viewer's eye to a huge arch pieced together by a master of masonry.

The edges glowed with firelight and gentle song drifted to him on the air. It was like the entrance to a world of dreams.

The song was delicate and almost seemed to drip warmth into Hoseok’s core with each perfect, sleepy note as he approached. At least he was not the only one praying at night, he thought.

Minhyuk had not shown him the Church on his tour. Now that Hoseok stood in it, he realised why.

One wall was entirely made of glass.

The cobbled slabs of see-through material were set across the far end of the entrance, a whimsical set piece above the Altar, Sermon, Chancel and Nave. Each piece glittered with colour. 

Stained glass.

Three arches encased the scenes of the work with the metalwork reaching to the heavens with spindly fingers of gold. To the left lay a landscape of trees and hills with a giant stood on a mountain, staff cast to the sky and breaking the land in two to form the Hangwon River. To the right was a depiction of the Holy War fought three eons ago, when the only two provinces of the land had been the Northern and Southern tribes, and the Gods had set their rules in the Cross of Gaiyon on the Sindeog hilltop that determined the land belonged to two brother Kings - the first Kings of Middleground and Highland.

The middle piece showed the current King - King Changkyun III - with his long beard and fur cape sat on his golden throne. The glistening crown on his head shone like a halo made of sun and to his side sat a woman in all her regal glory holding an infant child in her arms.

Her eyes were glittering gems of Hazel, just like the Prince's.

Hoseok knew then the Church was a new addition to the castle, or at least the window had been commissioned after Prince Im’s birth. He was left to wonder why the King had not changed the glass since the Queen’s death and his remarriage, but he supposed the answer could simply be disrespect. 

The dead Queen was beautiful and forever immortalised in the place most connected to her soul.

It was then Hoseok realised he was not alone.

Stood in the flickering light of the thousand candles lit behind him on the steps of the altar itself was the most beautiful person alive.

Long hair fell in sand coloured waves to their chest. The soft locks were plaited in a circle around their head, woven with slips of ribbon that glittered in the light. Hypnotising amber eyes seemed to twinkle with the knowledge of a thousand moons before them, dusted with what seemed to be gold paint in a stripe wrapped around their head. It was no wonder Hoseok found himself spellbound by the pastel of their lips, daggers of their eyes and the gentle curve of their sand coloured skin.

They wore a robe of sheer gold, layered and floating gently with each slow movement, billowing around a poised frame. A headpiece of thin gold was held up behind their head consisting of a flat circle so big and elaborate it mimicked the sun in the sky as it moved with their movement, spokes twisting from the base placed around their shoulders and jewels glittering in the hem.

The aura that surrounded them was hypnotic. They almost seemed to glow and pulse in a halo of otherworldly existence.

Was Hoseok dreaming? It sure seemed like it.

“Welcome,” the person said, drifting down from the top step of the altar and in doing so wafting the scent of cloying incense through the vast room. Their voice was as soothing as their presence and the accent almost seemed to knit the sounds together with more reason.

“Who are you?” Hoseok asked, confused. He had never met a person like this. Should he be wary?

They tilted their head to the side and held out a flat palm. “Perhaps I should ask you that question.”

“I’m Lee Hoseok,” he replied bluntly.

“Well, Hoseok Lee. It is a pleasure to be in your company. You have the most charming aura,” The person smiled for the first time. It was a soothing smile that spun Hoseok into a trance and left two small dimples in his cheeks. “My name is Jooheon - no last name, for our people do not follow the customs of family divisions. I am sure you understand, no?”

And then it dawned on him.

“You're from the East,” Hoseok stated in revelation.

“Indeed. My home is the Khamsen Plains, so far East the sun touches our land whenever she chooses to rise,” said the Priest.

Because that was what they were - A Priest.

Hoseok had heard of the Eastern Priests from the few travellers who had visited his stables. Stored in the back of his mind was a memory from a happier time - one where his father’s laughter had sipped from the hot cup of chive tea in his hands as he listened to a man with a cape made of silk detail the strange lands of the East; from the rolling sand dunes, the marble pyramids, the glass houses to the constant worship.

That is all those from the East did. All of their lives were devoted to the worship of their Goddesses - or at least, that is what the traveller had told him. Child Hoseok had looked upon this charismatic man as he told tales of the chanting and songs that could be heard for miles and miles in the desert so hot it burnt skin.

As if on instinct the commoners eyes darted to their chest and he frowned at the lack of identification. “Why do you not have a Crest?”

“Where I come from, Crests are not necessary. We do not label our profession as our identity. Our only purpose is to serve our Goddesses as a vessel for their will.”

“Are you a she or a he?” Hoseok asked, confused. For some reason he could not tell.

“I am neither,” Jooheon said with a small smile. “I am also both.”

Hoseok opened and closed his mouth for a few moments and it seemed to amuse the Priest. “But then… what do I call you?” he asked, brow furrowed in perplexity.

“The men here call me as such. They say my voice is deep enough to command an army, and henceforth describe me as ‘Him’.” Jooheon seemed to pause for a moment in which his palms came together to rest and his eyes twinkled with entertainment. “I have no problem with that label, Hoseok Lee, if you so wish to use it.”

“But you could be a girl?”

“My culture does not have inner binaries like gender or class. I could not be a girl, because that label does not exist. Neither does boy. I am simply me, a vessel for the Great Goddesses and their will.”

Hoseok hesitated. “So... you don’t care that I’m commonfolk?”

At that Jooheon’s piercing gaze spun into delight. “Precisely. That label means nothing to me. We are all here on this beautiful earth as per the wish of the Goddesses. I would be a fool to attempt to confine what they have made true.”

Strange. How could one not be motivated by money? How could a society exist without hierarchy? Hoseok did not know how people could function if they did not have a Crest to define themselves.

“I don’t think Goddesses are real.” Hoseok stated bluntly.

At that Jooheon laughed. It was a strange sound, a comforting lull of relaxation that lured Hoseok further into his beautiful frame. “Understandable. Not many of those beyond the boundaries of sand do.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“No.”

Hoseok blinked. “Does anything bother you?”

“Perhaps.” Jooheon smiled, amused. “Was there something you wished of me today, Hoseok Lee, or may I return to my worship? Would you perhaps like me to ask the Goddesses for advice on your part?”

“No,” Hoseok said - too quickly. He did not trust the strange Eastern customs. He did not trust a witch with Goddesses who did not exist. “I only wanted to pray to my Gods.”

“Be my guest,” the foreign Priest said with that silk voice of his and gestured with an open palm. “The altar is there.”

Hoseok offered him a wary nod of thanks and made his way around him.

Why was there a Priest from the Eastern Lands here? They were so far away and their culture was so different. Never had they fought a war. Never had they involved themselves in Middleground affairs.

Why was one in the castle, performing worship as if he belonged?   
  
Hoseok shook the confusing thoughts from his mind and took the last few steps to the altar of the Earth spirit. Water trickled down a drip into a rippling pool, distorted mirror set in the bottom, pit of soil and rock creating a basin just in front of it. One must dirty their hands with the earth that provided all of Middleground with life and connected them to the Giants of another time, before washing it with the blessed water and allowing the flowing life force to take the prayers to the earth, where it could be granted by the Gods who hear it.

He sunk his fingers into the moist soil and let his eyes close in prayer to the sound of Jooheon singing softly once again.

He called upon the Gods, but like most nights found the inky darkness of his eyelids the only response to his questions. There was nothing much he wanted to say. He had only come for comfort.

Eventually, he settled for asking them to let him go home.

When he opened his eyes with a sigh and began cleaning them under the quiet stream of water, something in the distance caught his stare.

The window of the church overlooked the entire kingdom almost as if built to do so.

The stable boy inhaled sharply upon staring at his home draped in inky night. Muffled by the light of the stars, subdued by the gentle roll of the river against the stilted houses, each building seemed infinitely familiar and yet overwhelmingly far away. He had never seen the village from such a height before. Had never dreamed he would look down at everything he had ever known from the steps of the castle he despised. 

A wave of homesickness welled up in his throat and he had difficulty swallowing it down.

He had almost completed his first week working in the castle. He only had to be here a few months, at most. Enough to amass a small fortune and then he could return home to his small house and small stables with his vacant mother and her grey hair sat by the candlelight deep into the night.

He did not like being around Royals. Despite having only witnessed Minhyuk in his first few days there, the mere reaction to his existence from the other castle workers had made the message very clear.

It did not matter how many Kings granted him permission or how many Prince’s lives he saved. He was not welcome here. There was a difference between him and them.

Hoseok supposed his Grandfather was right and had been all along.

“The fear of uncertainty you feel will not persist much longer, Hoseok Lee.” Jooheon's calming voice echoed through the quiet church. The stable boy jumped and spun on his heel, not ready for such an interruption of his tumultuous thoughts. “Sometimes the person you perceive as the enemy may become your closest friend.”

The sentence was ominous but it just caused the commonfolk to burst into tired, bitter laughter.

“Thanks, but I don’t need no wisdom from fake goddesses,” Hoseok said scathingly, before leaving the altar and his thoughts of home far behind him on a journey back to his room alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have you tried the minhyuk today? i thought the minhyuk was lovely  
> tag urself im the amount of times wonho eats Good Bread in this fic  
> we see more annoying kyun next chapter so stick around lads because i absolutely Love spoilt princes ok


	4. IV

Hoseok’s first week in the castle passed in a blur and his dreamlike encounter with Jooheon faded into the back of his mind. 

Most of his time consisted of unending days of hard labour in the stables. Every morning Hoseok woke to the crackle of fire and cold stone ceilings of his walls, and every morning Hoseok found yet another thing wrong with what the Royals called their ‘Prestige’. The past stable worker had obviously been about as adept at working with horses as Hoseok was at staying out of difficult situations. In that, every way the commoner turned, there was another problem that needed to be fixed.

Ten stallions had ill fitting shoes. Twenty had bridles that did not sit right. Half of the decorative saddle blankets had been eaten away by pests that had crawled through the hole in the outer wall. While Hoseok had taken to filling that in with mortar late into the night, he had thrown his tools down to run and tame a Harper who was kicking at Lin because a bird had spooked him. It had revealed to Hoseok that not all of the foreign horses were properly domesticated and, with a sigh, he began the long process of accustoming them to such simple things as the outside world.

The commoner could not even find the time to take any of them out for a ride, despite the deep desire to find familiarity in the sound of hooves on hard ground and whip of wind in his hair.

His first week’s pay came in the form of a letter placed delicately on his pillow after a long days work when Hoseok’s silk clothes were drenched in sweat and dirt. The beige envelope was outlined by gold and sealed with a green ink stamp of the Royal Crest - a jewelled thistle encased by thorns.

He opened it gently, almost scared to disturb its contents. Inside he pulled a piece of parchment scribbled with elaborate ink he could not read.

Attached to the top was a small piece of gold.

It was larger than Hoseok had been expecting. For some reason, in his mind, Drachens were minuscule slivers of the most expensive metal engraved with nothing much at all. Instead, the flat expanse of gold glittered under the firelight and the ridges of its decoration shone almost as much as his eyes did upon seeing it.

That night Hoseok held a Drachen in his hand. 

His heart swelled looking at it.

It was all worth it. The miserable time away from everything he knew surrounded by people who scorned his existence - it was all worth it for this. Money.

Hoseok had never been a material person, but in that instant, gold was everything he knew.

The stable boy placed the coin on his bedside. It lay next to the smaller Sopher Minhyuk had given him on his first day at the castle. Both of which would procure the most amazing reaction upon bringing them home.

Perhaps he would buy hot food before visiting his mother. The thought made him smile before he fell into a deep sleep on the comfort of silk sheets and feathers pillows.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

“Commoner, commoner!”

The stable boy ignored the call echoing through the small passageway leading to the golden stables. He had been bent into a backbreaking position over an anvil for the majority of the day, chipping away at the crossed buckles of the decorative bridles to loosen them into a friendlier shape. Lin and Jae were out roaming half the horses before bedtime, having set down new hay earlier in the day and filled the metal troughs with food.

“Stable boy!  _ Hoseok! _ ”

“What?” Hoseok groaned, looking up from his work in exasperation to find Minhyuk stood in the doorway dressed in white and clutching his stomach in an attempt to breathe. The snow of his hair was a waterfall cascading around his worried face and shimmering pool eyes.

“You- You-” the Northern Prince gasped for air. In doing so, his accent seemed to slip even further in panic, leaving Hoseok having to squint to understand him.

“What is it?” he asked, setting down his pick in annoyance. Could a man not work in peace?

“You have been invited to dinner with the Royals,” Minhyuk choked out.

“I have  _ what? _ ” Hoseok spun around to face the Prince in shock.

Minhyuk seemed to take a moment to regain his breath. “The King has invited you to sit with us for- for our evening meal. He has described it as compensation for the marvellous and Godlike saving of his son, as well as a glorious reward for your hard work in the stables thus far.”

“Shit,” Hoseok breathed.

It was obvious the Royal was distraught for he showed no signs of outrage at the commonfolks terrible language. “They want you there  _ now.  _ Apparently they sent an envoy to your quarters last night, but I checked and you had not even read the invitation-”

“Because I cannot read, Minhyuk!”

“They did not know!” the soft Northern Prince raised his voice in distress. “We must go. We cannot keep them waiting.”

Minhyuk looked as horrified as Hoseok felt.

There was no way he was about to dine with the most powerful men in the Kingdom. There was nothing in the four Realms of the Gods earth that would convince him to sit with the men he most despised and engage in polite discussion.

“I cannot go,” the stable boy breathed. “I won’t. I can’t.”

“You  _ must _ ,” Minhyuk cried dramatically and then, with a fateful flourish of his gloved hands, took a hold of the commonfolks dirtied forearm and dragged him into the passageway to the greater castle. 

They hurried through the corridord together, Minhyuks delicate footsteps like the faint falling of snow in soft winds, Hoseok’s like a thunderous cloud rumbling overhead.

Eventually the stable boy found himself in the lavish parts of the castle dripping antiquity from their very walls. This was a place foreign to the stable boy in that not even he had been taken here on his tour - probably due to the armed guards standing at every corner and the milling noblemen halting in their purposeful footsteps to stare at them run past.

They came to two sets of golden doors twisting with opulence and gems. Upon turning to face the commoner, Minhyuk grimaced and began rubbing at his face with a white glove.

“Oi- stop-” Hoseok attempted to pull back but the Northern Prince hissed in disapproval.

Nobody had ever  _ hissed _ at him. It left him dumbfounded - was that a custom of the Northern people?

“Do you usually hiss at people?” Hoseok asked in bewilderment.

“It is an insult of us Northerners -  _ harh moūr- aăh! _ ”

Hoseok blinked.

He had not been listening very well, but half of what the other had said did not sound like their common tongue.

“You are disgustingly filthy, but I guess there is nothing we can do now,” Minhyuk lamented, twisting Hoseok’s head to the side to rub at his neck before pulling back with a sigh. His accent seemed more pronounced in his panic. “Please be on your best behaviour. If you make a mistake, it will come back to me.”

“Did you just call me disgusting?” Hoseok asked incredulously.

“In two languages, yes.”

He did not get to answer, for Minhyuk had already brushed down his own tunic and swung open the doors to the Royal dining room.

Hoseok swallowed down a painfully thick lump of nerves and felt the anxiety drop like a stone into his stomach before following the white haired man inside.

The room stretched like a flood running down the rocks of the Highland mountains, long beams and heavy pillars holding up the ceiling adorned in golden tapestries with the green emblem of the Royal Thistle hanging heavy in the dead air. There were three long tables running the length of the room and one at the head upon a small flight of steps.

Nobody was there.

The tables were set. The goblets polished. The chairs identical widths apart. Hoseok did not have time to count but he estimated perhaps three hundred people could sit and dine comfortably.

And yet they stretched for as far as the eye could see completely devoid of guests.

“Why are the tables so empty?” Hoseok whispered to Minhyuk while they walked the sinister aisle.

“Prince Im usually requests for there to be no nobles to attend our dinners,” Minhyuk replied quietly, eyes trained in front of him. “He does not like the way they look at him.”

When Hoseok lifted his gaze to focus on what the Northern Prince stared at, all sense of confidence fled his body once again.

It was the Royals.

There were only three of them

Hoseok frowned as he took in the small company. Neither the King nor the Queen were in attendance. Instead, Prince Im sat in the golden backed chair closest to the head of the table in white and emerald and gold, raven hair once again as dark as the night sky without stars and hazel eyes glowering at the commoner. Directly opposite him was Prince Kihyun - his highland step-brother dressed in blood crimson from head to toe, pointed ears peeking from underneath wine coloured hair. Hoseok was relieved to see the Princeguard Hyunwoo sat two spaces from Changkyun’s right. While the man was dressed in a gold sash decorated with medals of war and had a sheathed sword propped to his side, something about his brown eyes and tan skin lulled Hoseok into security. He looked more like him. If Hoseok had not known his last name to be Son - that of Royal blood - he would have assumed the man to be commonfolk as well.

Minhyuk came to a stop shortly before reaching the table piled high with steaming food. A whole roast Pig stuffed with apple, meats and herbs took up most of the room on a platter made of silver and gold. Duck and carp littered lone plates along with plaited containers of pastry oozing with fruits and juice. It smelt like such tangible seasoning Hoseok’s mouth watered and he swallowed thickly. This was the picture of half formed dreams that had come to him when he was younger - of plates piled high with saturated, heavy, so very real food. Food he could never eat. Food he would kill for.

Minhyuk coughed.

Upon the sound the Highland Prince Kihyun dabbed at his mouth with an embroidered hand cloth and turned to face them. “Ah. You have finally arrived.”

“Did you forget commonfolk could not read, Kihyun?” Minhyuk said scathingly.

Hoseok shot the Northerner a surprised glance. He was not usually so sarcastic.

The Highland Prince laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. His golden teeth glistened in the firelight and sent shivers down Hoseok’s spine. “Alas, it must have slipped my mind. Still, you came.”

Having been morbidly distracted by watching the Prince’s sharp lips morph around his fake teeth, Hoseok was suddenly very aware that all three men’s disapproving stares were burning holes in his dirtied shirt.

Minhyuk nudged him with his elbow and the stable boy descended into a small bow.

“Thank you for inviting me - your Royal Majesty’s.”

“Highnesses,” Minhyuk hissed in his ear.

“Highnesses,” Hoseok corrected quickly, though he did not understand the difference.

“Sit. Opposite Hyunwoo. Leave a space between you and Kihyun,” Minhyuk’s soft voice murmured in his ear.

Hoseok did as he was told.

It struck the commoner as strange, however, when instead of seating himself the Northern Prince went to stand to to the left behind Prince Im’s chair in a position of submission - head bent, hands clasped, eyes lowered. 

Hoseok frowned at him and opened his mouth to question it. 

Prince Kihyun, however, spoke first.

“Welcome, commoner.” His melodic voice still held traces of the harsh Highlander dialect. When he smiled, it did not meet his beady eyes. “It is our pleasure to have you dine with us this evening. Please, eat what you wish and do not hold back. You may even drink if you so please. This wine here is my favourite - imported from Highland itself.”

While the red Prince spoke one of the twenty servants stepped forward holding a liquor jug and began pouring the scarlet liquid into his goblet. The ripe smell of grapes and cherries drifted through the air as did the burning of alcohol. Hoseok took the intricate cup in a tentative hand and sniffed it before setting it back on the table with a grimace. He had never been one for intoxicants, especially ones so sweet.

“Where’s the King?” he asked suddenly.

“His Majesty is ill. While merely a simple fever, he has taken the intelligent decision to remain in bed and said to thank you for your attendance,” Kihyun replied smoothly while the stable boy tore apart a plaited bun with his fingers and stuffed half of it in his mouth. “So, commoner. You mentioned during our previous encounter that you have spent time both at sea and on land. Is this true?”

“Uh, yeah,” Hoseok spoke through a mouthful, grimacing as he chewed the dense bread of the castle. Minhyuk seemed to shoot him a warning look and the servants stared at him in outrage but the stable boy paid them no mind. “Was a fishers boy for most of my fourteenth year on the Hangsan. Then I spent a summer in the Eodunn - we went all the way up to where MIddleground ends and the pine trees of Highland begin.” Hoseok paused his chewing for a moment in an attempt to recall information. “Think we trapped about four mountain lions. Can’t quite remember, if I’m honest.”

“... How delightful,” Kihyun wrinkled his nose, eying the food in Hoseok’s mouth.

Hoseok set down the bread and swallowed.

It was then he noticed everybody else had their pale fingers grasping at the golden cutlery as they cut their food into small pieces.

Was he meant to do that, too? Hoseok did not even know where to begin with holding a fork.

All of a sudden the Highland Prince shifted purposely in his chair to look at his step-brother. “Changkyun? You have not said a word through dinner. I understand you are sulking, but we have a visitor. Please pay him some mind.”

For the first time since the dinner had began, Hoseok focused on Prince Im, the heir to the throne of Middleground.

The stable boy knew he had been purposely avoiding looking at him out of simple, awkward initiation. Each event from the week before ran through his mind as if it were still happening - the tying of the knot, the flight through the air, the tackle to the ground and cut to his still healing cheek and knife thrown straight at the heart of a man cloaked in black with an arrow pulled taught in his hand.

Hoseok remembered that brief moment in which he had realised Prince Im was beautiful.

Sat at the table in a jewelled white tunic, collar and hems gold with green emeralds glittering across the front in a complex lattice pattern, nose strong and eyes delicate and lips pulled tight with disapproval, Hoseok realised with a sigh that the Royal was just as beautiful as he had remembered.

“Be quiet brother,” The Prince spoke in that deep, velvety voice of his that still managed to sound distinctly childlike. “You can not tell me what I should and should not do. If I wish to sit in responsible silence, then I will.”

Kihyun smiled unnervingly. “I am merely saying it might be adequate to address our guest so he does not go throwing knives at us, hm?”

Hoseok frowned.

One look at the set of cutlery in front of him revealed no knife to be at his disposal despite the Prince two seats down having three. Even the carving knife for the roasted boar was placed out of reach.

He did not know whether to find it insulting or amusing. 

“I still cannot believe my father let him under our roof,” Prince Im said bitterly. “He is taking advantage of everything we give him. Three of my waiting ladies have had to withdraw from their duties this week to wash the sheets of his bed. He even dripped blood on the silk of my carriages! I’ve had to send an entire procession to recover identical fabric from the trading market in Khamsen to repair it, and they shall take weeks to return, if they even return alive. He should never have come at all.”

Hoseok bit his tongue to stop himself from laughing while he fiddled with holding a spoon in his calloused hands (it seemed the easiest of the company to use, although there had been three of different sizes and perhaps choosing the biggest had been a mistake). Of course he had wondered why his sheets were always clean and made when he returned to his room, but he had not realised it had been inconveniencing the Prince.

The thought made his heart jump with petty, amused justice. 

“Changkyun, I knew your head was filled with dust but you are impeccably foolish sometimes,” Kihyun’s fork hit his plate with a loud clang when he interrupted his step-brother. “Your father does not care for Hoseok. He does not care for the work he does in the stable or the skills he may possess. He’s a statement, an example. If a poor stable boy can make it into our house, dirtied skin and all, then anybody can. It gives them hope.”

“Why do the commonfolk need hope?” Changkyun said petulantly as he picked at his food. “Why should we care about them at all?”

“Because they have the power to destroy the throne if they so wish,” Kihyun said gravely. “We must take the attention away from the Kingdom stealing their money with a magnificent story of a boy who came from nothing and now has everything. Show them that it is not us that is at fault, but them.”

Hoseok frowned listening to the Highland Prince speak and paused in his act of spooning vegetables into his mouth. He knew Highland men were brutal, cold and calculating and unable to feel much besides possession, but something about the way Kihyun spoke of his kind as if they were foolish sheep poked at his nerves.

It was then that Princeguard Hyunwoo, in all his calm, brooding demeanour, spoke up quietly. “In my humble opinion, your Highness, Hoseok has proven himself well for life in the castle.”

“He tried eating with his fingers, Hyunwoo.” 

“Like you used to do as a child, your Highness?”

Hyunwoo’s statement caused the Prince to turn to him in shock. Kihyun snickered and Minhyuk’s lips quirked up into a serene smile. Prince Im blushed a violent red the colour of Kihyun’s irises, eyes wide and mouth opening and closing with unsaid protests, before he collapsed into a sulk and poked at his food.

It was then that Prince Kihyun took a comforting tone of voice. “By all means Changkyun, it also stops them from attacking the castle and thereby attacking you. They would not dare hurt one of their own.”

“That man was not one of my own.” Hoseok said suddenly, unable to remain in quiet loathing for much longer. All eyes turned to him and his anger simmered in the spotlight. “I don’t associate with assassins. I ain’t a traitor.”

“He was commonfolk, was he not?” Prince Kihyun pointed out simply. “You are all the same.”

Hoseok bristled.

Each new biting comment about his kind of people, about the people who these rich men stole from, the people whose livelihoods were dedicated to funding their marriages or banquets or war efforts, stoked the flames in Hoseok’s heart as if trying to start a forest fire.

“King Changkyun the First was Royalty, right?” he said fiercely, drawing on his knowledge of the history of his land. “And yet he burned down the castle six hundred years ago in his own insanity, convinced the Fire Gods of the South were real. To assume the fact you and him both have pale skin and therefore the same intentions is… is stupid, to be honest.”

“You are terribly uncouth, commoner,” Prince Im said, clearly dismissive. It was the first time the boy had addressed him directly. “Did your father never hit you for speaking out of line?”

“My father is dead, your Highness.”

The table fell silent.

Changkyun stilled.

The Prince stared at the stable boy with the ring of his hazel eyes unreadable in the firelight.

For a moment, merely a second, Hoseok swore he saw a flash of pain behind the stormy green forest. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

The silence was quick to pool on the floor and fill the large dining room once again, a churning, nauseating mass of uncomfortableness pulling tight on his lungs. For some reason, Hoseok had assumed Royal dinners were grand affairs of courtiers, entertainment, jesters in yellow beaded shoes jumping from the beams and oral poetry sang to the excitement of multiple lyres playing at once.

As it was, the pressing, tense silence and angry undertone of every word was very different to what he had expected.

It was then he realised Minhyuk was still stood behind Changkyun despite such a length of time having passed. Did his feet not hurt by now? Why had he not chosen to sit?

"Oi, Min," he called suddenly, causing the company to look up in surprise. "Come take a seat.”

"You shall address him as Minhyuk," Changkyun snapped.

Hoseok shot the Prince an irritated look and pat the seat next to him. Who did Changkyun think he was, exactly? Guarding names from other people? It was a new level of spoilt he could not even fathom.

"Oi, Minhyuk,” he repeated. “Come take a seat."

"He cannot," Kihyun spoke up sharply.

"Why not?" Hoseok asked in exasperation.

"I do not eat what they eat or when they eat," Minhyuk interrupted with his soft, accented voice. "I am a refugee and must take as little as possible, so that when I can repay them, it is easier for us both."

Hoseok turned to look at Changkyun in outrage. "You wont even let him sit down?"

"Will not." Prince Im corrected stiffly. "And it is not a matter of letting anybody do anything. He simply cannot. He will be served with bread and soup later, as well as a collection of fruit and meat."

Hoseok looked up at the Northern Prince with his mouth hanging open in shock. Almost imperceivably, Minhyuk shook his head.

The silent plea was clear.

While Hoseok still found the whole ordeal ridiculous he respected Minhyuk for having been kind enough to comfort him the first week of his stay and now pitied him for how the Royals treated him. He said himself he was of Royal blood too. Why was his refugee status even imposed without outside observance?

Hoseok made sure to chew with his mouth open just to make a point.

"Can I take leftovers?" he asked once his stomach sat heavy with more food than he was used to and his fingertips tingled with the sugar of the roasted potato.

"Please may I," Kihyun quipped, as if habit. ”And honorifics.”

"Sorry. Please may I take leftovers, your Highness?"

"You mean... take food from the table?" Changkyun looked at him incredulously. "Wherever would you take it?"

"To my room." Hoseok shrugged. "I might get hungry later working with the horses."

Changkyun laughed. His cutlery clinked delicately against his plate. "You act as if we have been starving you.

"You have."

“You don’t look starved.”

“I am one of the lucky ones.”

A suspended cloud of spoilt disbelief hung around the young Royal’s tense frame. His knuckles were turning white. "My father has been allowing more grain rations to those in the corner of the province, and the price of bread has been steady for the last twenty winters-"

"You really think giving more grain to people already rich in it is helping us in the village?" 

"Commonfolk are inherently lazy.” Changkyun spoke as if reciting from a scroll. “They don't know what to do with the things we've given them."

"You don’t give us anything!” Hoseok laughed in disbelief.

“Now that is simply not true.” Changkyun’s eyes were harder than stone.

Hoseok pushed his plate away and turned to face the younger man in anger. “Can I remind you that I saved your life, Prince Im? You haven’t thanked me for that yet.”

“I do not think it proper to thank dirty men who tackle me to the ground and then speak to me with such rude language!” Changkyun snapped.

Hoseok stood up.

A goblet fell to the ground with the force of his moment. The company jumped and looked up in startled fear.

Hoseok took note of their wide eyes boring into his tense shoulders - Kihyuns the colour of blood, Hyunwoos a deep maroon. Minhyuk’s delicate glass irises were so round they looked as if they’d break with another loud sound, and Changkyun’s hazel ring flickered in the firelight with anger set deep in it’s jewels.

None of them had eyes like he did.

He was not welcome there once again.

“I’m leaving.” Hoseok said. His voice echoed in the empty room.

Minhyuk was clearly distraught when the stable boy threw down his golden spoon and began storming towards the set of golden doors down the aisle of empty tables. That foolish Prince and his spoilt ways and demeaning talk and ungrateful attitude - he could not believe that petty child would one day be King. The entire thing was absurd. Middleground was a joke. His grandfather was right - the Royals were a waste of resources and space and their cruel ways needed to be stopped.

Hoseok’s exit ground to a halt when two armed guards stepped in front of his body.

As if on instinct his hand went to his boot to search for the leather knife that was not there, but then the guards caught sight of the table of Royals behind him and stepped back sheepishly.

“Let him go,” Changkyun’s voice was strained when it echoed through the large room. “We do not wish to see him here ever again.”

"I like him." The faint words he heard as he stalked through the door were clearly stained with the Highland dialect.

"Be quiet Kihyun," came the harsh reply, before the golden doors closed with a final thud behind him. 

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

That evening Hoseok found himself alone in his room with none other than the Northern Prince. When the stable boy had opened his door to the Royal as the air hummed with the cold dew of nighttime, he had entered without a word and proceeded to curl up in the wooden chair by his dresser, bringing his feet up to rest on the surface in a position uncharacteristically human.

For a moment Hoseok seemed guilty looking at his withdrawn face. But what had he done to be guilty for? What he said had been entirely justified. There was no need to apologise.

“Aren't you going to eat this?” Minhyuk’s sudden words were soft. Hoseok looked up from his perch on the bed to find the Prince poking at the slice of apple tart sat on a plate on the side.

“Nah,” He shook his head. “I took it from the servants catering for you.”

“You.. what?” Minhyuk looked up in surprise.

  
“It’s for you,” Hoseok replied bluntly. “Go. Eat it. I know what it’s like to be hungry.”

“I’m not hungry,” Minhyuk said stiffly, suddenly withdrawn. “I will eat later, when I am served.”

“Eat now. Eat something that isn’t bread and soup.”

The Northern Prince hesitated.

Then he took the plate in his gloved hands and cut off the corner to eat.

“Who was the man who tried to kill Changkyun that day?” Hoseok asked while watching the white haired man nibble the crust of the tart. “Hyunwoo mentioned it was one of them, that he had the Hunters crest. What does that mean?”

The Royal paused and his eyes flickered with uncertainty. “I am not sure I should be divulging that type of information-”

“Please Min?” Hoseok clasped his hands together to beg. “We’re friends now, and I got you apple tart.”

“I should have known you commonfolk cannot do anything without expecting stuff in return,” There was an itch of a smile at his lips as he delicately placed his fork onto the plate. “It is a dangerous topic. Can I trust you, stable boy?”

“Of course,” Hoseok replied earnestly.

“There has been whisper among the courtiers that a rebel group has been forming in the village.” Minhyuk said, voice gentle and pillowy, picking at the tart with his fork and filling the room with the sweet smell of lukewarm red apples. “They all wear a Hunters crest, characterised by.. by a silver wolf pulling apart a golden rabbit.”

“Who are these Hunters? What to they want?”

“They want the Royals dead, or so we assume,” Minhyuk seemed to relax into his speech, feeding off Hoseok’s clear interest. “The attack you saved Prince Im from? It was not the first. In fact, the only reason you are here is because a band of black-cloaked Hunters attacked our procession and killed the stable boy as well as five servants.” The Royal paused for a moment to look down at his food. “They hung their corpses on the trees as a warning.”

An unsettling shiver ran down the stable boy’s spine.

Assassinating the Royals for their actions against the Kingdom and its poor inhabitants was one thing.

Murdering a wagonload of innocent people just to make a point was another.

“A warning for what?” Hoseok murmured.

“What do you enquire about these rebels, stable boy?” Minhyuk set down his plate and turned to face him. “You are commonfolk, after all. Do you have any reason behind their motive? Any sliver of idea?”

For some reason, the icy gaze of the Northern Prince set Hoseok on edge. He had to be careful. He was walking thin ice. “Distaste for the Royals is no secret in the village.” he said cautiously. “A lot of people feel wronged. Isolated. Abandoned.”

“But surely Prince Im’s marriage could fix that, right? Restore hope in the people with a happy allegiance between two fighting kingdoms?”

“I’m afraid peace does not fix hunger. We are hungry. And poor. And… and angry.” His voice dropped to a quiet murmur. “The war with the Fire Breathers was only fifteen years ago. Our men still carry burns. Our women are widows without food. The Crown insists on taking our money to pay for a marriage to a nation who slaughtered us by the thousands. We have every right to be angry.”

Minhyuk did not comment on that. He seemed deep in thought.

“I never thanked you for saving Prince Im’s life,” he said after a moment of pensive silence. “I know, as.. As a commonfolk it must have been hard to make the right decision.”

Hoseok shrugged. “Are you close with him?”

“He is the only reason I am alive,” Minhyuk said quietly.

“Is it true that… that he is marrying the Sun Princess?”

As if the Northern Prince had commanded it, the temperature dropped below freezing as the ice-like atmosphere congealed in his lungs. Hoseok swore that, if he were to concentrate hard enough, his own breath would billow as clouds of frost in front of his open mouth.

Hoseok had only wished to know if the whispers caught between Lin and Jae were true.

“Yes,” Minhyuk whispered. “The Southern Sun Princess - The Princess of fire - shall marry Prince Im to solidify the treaty of peace.”

There was a pause.

Many thoughts chased their tails around and around in Hoseok’s head, but none of them formed more than half coherent questions. Was Middleground so weak they needed to concede before they were destroyed? Were the Southerners so intent on penetrating every kingdom in the realm they would marry off their most prized bargaining chip?

What would his people think, the commonfolk, knowing one of  _ them _ was to be their Queen?

Hoseok did not know, but what he did know was the nausea culminating in his full stomach was not caused by the castle bread.

“It is getting late. I shall return to my room now,” the Northern Prince rose quickly, setting down his fork from where he had been playing with his food with a gloved hand.

Hoseok frowned and rose with him. “But you didn’t finish your pie-”

“Thank you, Lee Hoseok,” Minhyuk turned and put a gently hand on his arm. His smile was sincere and eyes echoed the pain of words unsaid. “You truly touched my heart today.”

It was only when Minhyuk had left did the stable boy realise he had called him by his full name.

Like they were friends.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

When the Fire Breathers of the South finally arrived, Hoseok had his invitation placed on his pillow once again, atop a plain tunic of heavy fabric and shoes that did not rise above the ankle.

He had called over a servant passing through the hall to read the instructions out to him.

He followed them in annoyance. He did not wish to be there to greet the Southern Prince and his company. His preferences took root in helping Jae and Lin in the stables all day, not donning a plain yet formal tunic and being given a place to stand by the fifth pillar of the throne room underneath the second garland of lilies.

Only the Royals could assign such an indistinct place for their only stable boy.

However, despite the uneasiness settling in his stomach at the thought of the Fire Breathers infiltrating the most important stronghold of the Kingdom by invitation, Hoseok worked for the Royals now.

He had to do as they said whether he liked it or not.

So, two weeks after he had first entered the castle by golden carriage, Hoseok donned the formal tunic, washed his hands in a basin of water and made his way to the throng of people ebbing and flowing into the throne room himself.

The week had been busy enough already. Lin and Jae were still working by the time Hoseok bid them farewell, buffing the empty stalls for the arrival of the visitors steeds. Even while on his way to attend the people of the castle were still frantic with preparations. Many bustled past him juggling items he could not name or pulling large wagons of food or buckets or bedsheets. Hoseok had mostly avoided the commotion surrounding the arrival of the Southerners but the brief exposure to the panicked atmosphere was enough to set him on edge.

He took his place by the fifth pillar underneath the second garland of lilies. He had a good view of the entire hall and was surrounded by a gaggle of head servants just like him. The tailor to his side was familiar. So were the two head cooks

It was his first look at all the Nobles together. While he had glimpsed them on occasion meandering down corridors or laughing in firelit alcoves, he had not been prepared for the organised mass of men in heavy capes or women drowning in jewellery and silk gowns throbbing underneath the ceiling of the throne room. Hoseok supposed there were about two hundred living and breathing and talking - two hundred men and women who presided over the court and determined the levels of tax they would impose on their subjects.

The hatred now formed a dull throb in his head. It made his bones ache with exhaustion. He was tired of seeing such opulence. It almost did not seem to bother him anymore.

There was such a clear distinction between him and them. No point attempting to bridge the churning river with despicable thoughts.

The Royals were stood just as they had been the first time Hoseok had met them. The King and Queen sat centre, Changkyun to the right, Kihyun to the left, Hyunwoo as the corner guard and Minhyuk hidden behind the Prince. 

The atmosphere was thick and trailed strong fingers over the throats of all those present. It seemed to caress the nervous words of each jittery noble and kept Prince Im’s vacant eyes trained on the door.

A conch announced their arrival. The low sound vibrated through the tense air and whittled their bones into ashes. Hoseok did not know what to expect. Would he grow pale at the sight of the nation that had slaughtered his father? Or would the nervous shake of his hands turn to anger that stained his vision red?   
  
The gates wound open with the slow click of metal work and each deep clank echoed through the hall.

They moved through the palace as fire. 

The first to stream through the door were warriors - a fitting entrance for the Warrior Kingdom. Taller than any man he had ever met, their broad, muscular shoulders were coated in caramel skin and beards of thick dark hair grew in spirals down their necks and were braided across their backs.

The most startling thing, however, was how every single man was tattooed. From head to toe black swirls of ink were stabbed in geometric patterns - curling under the snakeskin shorts they wore, distorted by their harnesses of rough rope, circling their eyes with complete darkness.

Hoseok swallowed.

These were the men his father had fought on the front line.

No wonder Middleground had lost.

Their banners fluttered in the movement - grand tendrils of silk billowed and flickered like the flames of a fire just stoked. When the great warriors finally took their place lining the sides of the aisle (the nobles to each side clearly wary of being so close to giant men holding flags as if they were spears), in walked the Royal procession. Hoseok found himself hovering on his tiptoes to see over the crowds as they walked slowly into the throne room. It was as if they already owned it.

The Princess of the Sun was beautiful.

That was the first thing Hoseok realised. It was obvious the company was organised to compliment her. The biggest guards escorted her side, emphasising her slim, willowy frame and incredible height. Hair fell down her back and across her chest in golden ringlets, orange eyes sparkling above a tan face brushed with blush and lips painted red. The dress she wore was modest and flickering like a flame itself, great fluttering veils of silk following her delicate movement and the deep red colour an obvious homage to her land, heavy jewellery glinting like the fresh morning dew that settled on Autumn leaves.

Hoseok's eyes flickered up to catch Changkyuns expression. The Prince looked as cold as the day they had met - eyes blank, position held, not even a flicker of satisfaction in his pursed lips.

Hoseok resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Spoiled brat.

Next to her walked the Prince of the Southern Sun Kingdom

The son of the man whose armies had killed Hoseok’s father.

The heir to the throne that had almost burnt Middleground to ashes.

The Prince was equally as beautiful as his sister and surprisingly delicate considering the size of his men. They shared the same golden hair, molten orange eyes and tan skin as well as thick lips and curved nose. Taller even than Hyunwoo, the Prince of the Sun wore an embroidered gold suit with cuffs of red and the Crest of the Eight Spoked Sun pinned to his lapel glinted prettily under the sunlit hall. A black tattoo line was inked into his skin from the centre of his hairline to the delicate swell of his collarbones, complimented by three short spokes on each of his cheekbones and black suns on his palms. They echoed the markings of the other company, although Prince Hyungwon’s was delicate and regal, whereas the guards were etched with complex swirls and geometric lines across their entire body. It was unnerving. 

It also did nothing to hide the arrogance in his cocky plump lips.

Fire burned in all the amber eyes of the Southern Procession, just waiting to rise and conquer.

The Princess’s diadem sparkled in the light and the Prince’s crown glinted with heavy gold.

“Welcome, guests,” The King’s commanding voice rang through the castle when silence fell once more. “Please state who you are and your business in the Court.”

The Nobles of the court shifted uncomfortably in their positions. It was clear neither them nor people like Hoseok wanted the Fire Breathers so close to their King when it had only been a decade since they had attempted to overthrow him.

“Your Royal Majesty, King of Middleground, protector of this beautiful realm and most powerful man in these lands,” The Southern Prince spoke first. Even his voice sounded like the crackling embers of a dying flame. His accent rolled smooth letters and threaded the words into a beautiful melody of lilted song. “My name is Prince Chae Hyungwon of the Golden Kingdom, eldest and only son of Chae Hanju the Third, king of the South, bearer of the Crest, and greatest Warrior to live.” The man outstretched a palm tattooed with an eight spoked sun. “My sister is Princess Chae Jisoo, eldest and only daughter of Chae Hanju the Third, king of the South, bearer of the crest, and greatest Warrior to live. We have come to offer her hand in marriage to your eldest son and in turn develop a treaty of peace.”

A hush descended the throne room as the offer hung in the air.

Then the King held open a palm.

Hoseok’s stomach twisted. Would his Kingdom really accept the enemy into their own castle? Would his people stand for it?

“We accept your offer of marriage,” The King said gruffly, and his beard twitched in what might have been a smile. “Welcome to the court, Prince Chae. We hope to be hospitable.”

“Thank you for having us, your Majesty. Your palace is impressive and your people kind,” Hyungwon smiled. His expression seemed unusually sincere. “We have been at war for many years. But that is old politics, Is it not? The new generation calls for Peace.”

“Wise words from a wise future king and a wise future ally,” The King huffed and turned to his son. “Prince Im?”

For the first time Hoseok noticed how Changkyun glared at Hyungwon with suspicion rooted deep in his pupils.

“It is our honour to offer you homage under the Crest of the Thistle,” he said formally, offering a polite bow that the Fire Prince returned. “We have organised quarters for you and your company, including banquets, storage and food. Our stables will house your horses and celebrations will begin within the next week.”

There was some cheering from Hyungwon’s company. Hoseok was not alone in his uncomfortable grimace as the broad tattooed men hollered and stamped their feet at the mention of celebration.

Hyungwon seemed to laugh at his rowdy men and raise a hand until they settled into position once again. When he turned to face Changkyun, his eyes twinkled.

“Jisoo shall have her own room, I assume?” he smiled, arrogance dripping from each word.

Changkyun blinked, confusion decorating his delicate features. “Of course, Prince Chae. The marriage has not occurred. She will sleep alone.”

“Pardon my brother, Prince Im,” The Princess spoke for the first time and in doing so she offered a small bow. Her voice was melodic and high, like the windchimes that hung throughout the village, and her accent was unmistakable. “He can be quite possessive. We are, after all, in a foreign land. Family is important to us Southerners.”

Hoseok’s eyes widened when their act dawned on him.

They were both clearly playing a part. The empathetic, modest Princess and her charming, protective older brother.

Clever.

One look at the Prince showed that he too knew what the Golden duo had planned.

“Family is important to all those who carry the Crest,” his lip curled and voice soured. “Are you suggesting we here do not value our family?”

Jisoo maintained elegance as she shook her head. “That is not what I intended to convey-”

“Well it is what you succeeded in saying.”

“Im Changkyun.”

At the sound of his full name being bellowed throughout the throne room by none other than the King himself, the boy shut his mouth and his cheeks burned with humiliation. 

“Sorry, father. Forgive me. I am just nervous, that is all,” he said. “It was a pleasure to talk, Princess. I hope we can become good friends.”

Changkyun gave a final stiff bow, one which the elegant Princess returned with a smile.

Hoseok could not imagine the tall lady stood next to the child Changkyun, let alone holding hands in marriage.

“Well. If that is all then we shall disperse,” The King motioned for his servants to begin escorting him from the room. “Our attendants will show you to your quarters in the Eastern Wing - we have designated a multitude of floors for your people.”

It seemed the meeting was over, if not for the King’s dismissal but for the flurry of servants as they set to work and the wave of rising noble voices discussing the events that had just unfolded.

"Your High Grace and Royal Majesty, would I perhaps be allowed to address Prince Lee Minhyuk, of the Northern Kingdom?" Prince Chae’s charming voice echoed above the slowly rising din and caused it to lull into an uneasy hush once again. "I see he is stood behind you. We as company have something to say."

The temperature dropped below freezing. Ice seemed to creep into the hearts of every man standing and nobody dared move.

The silence was deafening and all eyes fearful. Hoseok found himself holding his breath despite not knowing what was wrong. Why was everybody acting as if they had been encased in blocks of ice? What was so terrible about the Sun Prince wanting to address Minhyuk?   
  
Changkyun narrowed his eyes.   
  
"Prince Lee is currently under our crests protection as a refugee,” The Prince said, voice suddenly dripping with poison. “He may answer for himself."

When no reply came, Changkyun turned his neck to indicate the man behind him.

"Minhyuk? Do you wish to address Prince Chae?"

The Northern Prince shot Hoseok a glance that he only just caught. Hoseok watched him swallow, jaw set and eyes cold as steel, before he nodded in agreement and stepped out around the throne.   
  
His footsteps echoed on the marble floor. The entire hall held their breath with each delicate sound of snow falling onto frozen grass.    
  
Dressed in his tunic the same colour as his shockingly white hair, his silver crest gleaming from his naple and the flag of mourning pinned to his chest, he looked every bit the Northern Prince. His piercing glass eyes were withdrawn and even echoed fear while he took centre position.   
  
Stood above Hyungwon upon the steps of the throne they looked every bit the opposite. Golden skin against porcelain. Fire eyes burning into ice.   
  
"What's happening?" Hoseok whispered to the tailor stood beside him, who was looking considerably paler than before. "Why does he want to talk to Minhyuk?"   
  
"Do you not know?" The man's eyes grew wide with glistening fear. "The Golden Nation declared war on the Northern Territory nine years ago. When they refused to concede, they stormed their village and burnt everything to the ground. Women and Children included.” The tailor turned to look at the Northern Prince with pain in his eyes. “Minhyuk was the only survivor. It is why he takes refuge here. He is the last of his people.”

Hoseok’s heart stopped beating. His mind raced with the new information and his eyes pricked with tears.

The Fire Breathers had killed them all?

Was Minhyuk really the only blue eyed man to live?

Hoseok opened his mouth to respond - he did not know what with, although he knew it would be lacklustre in the face of such tragedy - but then a familiar quiet, accented voice danced gently along the tense atmosphere of the hall.   
  
"I am Prince Lee Minhyuk of the Northern Kingdom. First of my name, carrier of the Crest, namesake of my people and refugee of the Thistle." The boy’s voice was characteristically reserved and seemed to carry as soft wisps of snow across the throne room. "You wished to speak to me?"   
  
Hyungwon’s face had been stripped of all arrogant demeanor. Instead, he looked upon the lone boy and his thin frame with pain flickering in his golden eyes.

Prince Chae raised up his arm.

The company of Middleground nobles held their breath.

Then, the warriors bowed.

All hundred tattooed men dropped their heads forward and bent their knees in submission, lowing their flags to the floor as their noses scraped the stone. Even Prince Chae and his elegant sister knelt with their hands over their hearts and eyes lowered in sadness.

The courtiers remaining in silent shock while the Fire Breathers rose from their position. It seemed even the King and Queen were looking at the company in muted surprise, and Kihyuns usually sharp eyes were wide with realisation.   
  
Changkyun’s petty gaze held all the anger in the world.   
  
"It is with our sincerest apologies that we ask for your Kingdom's forgiveness in our atrocities of war," Hyungwon's long frame straightened up and his golden hair fell about his face. "We as a nation extend all condolences to your kingdom and culture. The men you see here had no part in the destruction of your nation. We hope for you to look past our Crests in order to form an alliance of friendship."   
  
Minhyuk was as pale as snow and his blue veins grew taught.   
  
At that Princess Jisoo stepped forward on delicate feet and offered outstretched hands draped in orange silk. "We offer gifts to you and your nation in apology, we bring a whole carriage in your honour. We only hope you accept them."

There was a pause.   
  
"Gifts won't bring back my people," Minhyuk said quietly.   
  
The kind smile on Hyungwon's face dropped instantly.   
  
His eyes burned with flame.

Not even the King dared to make a sound or fight Minhyuk's cold aura. Some part of Hoseok recognised his silence as support, and the Court mimicked his actions.

The tension was palpable. Heavy dread settled on Hoseok's shoulders as he watched the Lords and Courtiers primed faces grow fearful.   
  
"You are correct and we apologise," Hyungwon said smoothly. "Nothing we may offer will make up for what the people of the past did. All we can do is hold hands in solidarity and move forward as one.”   
  
Minhyuk glanced back at Changkyun. The tension in the air threatened to choke each person present although none dared breathe for fear of breaking the silence.   
  
Hoseok frowned as he watched Changkyun stare into the distance and give a barely impercievable shake of his head.   
  
The silent command was obvious -  _ don't. _   
  
Minhyuk grit his teeth and turned back to the Sun Prince.   
  
"I am sorry, your Highness, but I cannot accept your offer of peace" Minhyuk’s voice was both quiet and sour, like an unripe apple riddled with worms. "When I was fourteen years old, I watched my family burn as soldiers dressed in gold with their Sun painted banners torched my entire village. This does not fix that.”

A pause.

The sound of a dress ruffling. The crackle of fire echoing off the walls.

Hyungwon took a deep breath and seemed to force a smile.

“These banners are sacred to our people,” he began again. “Although the men who hold them now had no part in that tragedy-”   
  
“Massacre. It was a massacre,” Minhyuk was now visibly shaking with anger. It was a strange sight to see the usually shy, gentle man taught at every muscle and forcing venom into his voice. "Your people drove mine into the palace hall, locked the doors and set it alight. I watched my mother's skin turn black and melt from her face like snow on the springtime mountains. I will not make peace with the murderer of my people. I will not show kindness to a nation who set the snow alight and I will not rest until you have paid for what you did to us-"   
  
"Minhyuk!" The command from the King was loud. It caused the Northern Prince to gasp and shudder with respiration as he had not taken a single breath during his speech. "That is quite enough for today."   
  
"But-"   
  
"You are under our Crests protection. Do not forsake that, Refugee Lee,” The King said gruffly. Hoseok was not a fool - he noticed the Kings use of the commonfolk name to describe the Northern Prince. A clear reminder of his place. “Today is a day of peace. We will not mourn over death, we are here to celebrate the union of our houses through marriage.”   
  
"It is not I nor my company who killed your family." Hyungwon said quietly. "My only intention is peace,"   
  
That was the first time Hyungwon had referred to himself.

For some reason, the hollow pain of his voice chilled Hoseok’s heart to the core.

“And it is peace we shall find, through the joining of our family in beautiful marriage.” The King raised his scepter and hit it on the ground to quieten the loud rumble of courtiers. “Court adjourned! 

The throne room was quick to descend into a bustle of people hurrying each way in multicoloured blurs. Servants directing Fire Breathers to their quarters, nobles striking up tense conversations with towering Warriors, the Prince and Princess engaging the King in discussion stood beside his throne.

With all the commotion of the hundreds of people, it was a miracle the stable boy could track the flurry of white hair disappearing around the corner.

As he hurried after the Northern Prince, Hoseok’s heart throbbed with pain at the thought of his past. Why had he never heard of the massacre of an entire nation?

How did Minhyuk live knowing he was the only one left?

Hoseok heard his Royal friend before he found him.

“How dare they!” the soft voice carried through the bustling halls above the heads of dark hair. Hoseok darted underneath their silk arms until he ended up in a hallway with no one but him. “How dare they- how dare they believe an apology and some gifts can make up for what they did to me-”

The commoner rounded the corner and came to a sudden halt upon finding himself stood in an open doorway to a restingroom. Sat on plush chairs directly opposite other were two men lit by a foggy cloud of firelight that bunched around their skin. Their legs were touching.

Minhyuk was crying. Sobbing. It was strange to Hoseok, who was used to seeing such serene happiness and slight mischief painted on his pale foreign features at all times. His eyes glistened like small droplets of jewels as crystal tears tracked down his marble cheeks.

His hands clutched the man opposite him as he bawled.

Prince Im.

It was Prince Im comforting Minhyuk, hidden away in a small room where they thought they were alone.

“They burned my village! They killed us all! I am the only one left, the only one-” Minhyuk took a shuddering gasp of air before a low sob escaped his pale lips. “They made me watch as my family screamed and they expect some kind of  _ forgiveness _ -” 

Minhyuk slipped into foreign tongue. It was the first time the stable boy had heard him speak his own language fluently and it was quick - fluid, mostly vowels and breaths of air - but the upset tone was obvious.

_ “Har moūr,  _ Minnie, please,” The Prince's pleading voice was heartbroken as he rubbed the crying mans knee.

It was more emotion he had ever heard from the boy.

The Prince gasped and fell back into accented common tongue. “Now you have to marry one. I’ll never be able to leave. I’ll always have to exist around them, with them.”

“I do not wish to marry, dear Minhyuk,” Changkyun deadpanned. His voice was void of any emotion. “You know I do not.”

Hoseok stepped into the room.

Prince Im’s head snapped up.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, narrow hazel eyes throwing daggers.

“I- I just- Minhyuk-” Hoseok stuttered. Minhyuk’s wide red eyes glittered like a thousand gems and held the pain of a thousand lives. The stable boy wondered if his voice was so soft because he was hunched under the weight of all those who died.

All those who were slaughtered by Hyungwon's people.

“Get out! Go! Be gone!” Changkyun called shrilly. He rose from his chair and it fell to the ground with an almighty crash. “I do not wish to see your commonfolk face in this part of the castle for the rest of your wretched stay!”

Hoseok stumbled backwards at the mercy of his rage.

The door slammed shut and Hoseok was once again alone.

For a moment he merely stared at the golden lock of the wooden slab.

His mind remained blank. Lips parted in an exhale of words left unsaid, Hoseok’s pitiful eyes drank in the clear barrier between him and the man who’s sobs still echoed through the silent corridor.

Eventually he hung his head and sighed.

When he turned to make his way back to his quarters, he bumped straight into a small statured man wearing the colour of blood.

Hoseok scrambled back in shock. When his gaze landed on the thin man’s impassive gaze, he hurried to rectify his mistake with a small bow. “I am sorry, Prince Kihyun. You scared me.”

A beat passed.

“Do not be so quick to judge my brother,” Kihyun said. “He means well.”

Hoseok blinked. “I hope you don't mind me saying, your Highness, but the Prince seems like a spoiled brat.”

Kihyun laughed. His guffaw was loud and like the warble of a blackbird, his golden teeth sparkling under the red-orange candlelight of the hallway. “That I cannot deny. He is insufferable most of the time.”

“But..?”

“Do not consider him so harshly. He is young and insecure. His self consciousness manifests as arrogance,” Kihyun’s eyes seemed to glitter with amusement, and he held out a hand to the ornate hall meandering in front of them. “Walk with me?”

Hoseok hesitated before falling into step behind the Royal.

He did not trust Prince Kihyun. He seemed too poised. Not arrogant, but confident. As if each sliver of knowledge that danced from his sharp tongue and sharp eyes and were received by his sharp ears merely confirmed what he already knew.

He walked elegantly, hands clasped behind his back and head held high in a way so unlike that of Prince Im’s permanent sulk.

“Every man in this castle knows what it is like to have nothing,” Kihyun mused almost to himself. “The King spent a year trapped on the mountains as a young man and ate the carcass of his dog to survive,” he paused, tilting his head to study Hoseok’s hair with a small smile tugging at his lips. “I ran from my father at the age of eleven, gave up all titles and future of my name and came to a foreign land not knowing what it held for me just to protect my mother.”

“Is that why…?”

“My teeth are golden? Yes,” Kihyun laughed and began to walk once again. “My father's soldiers held my head over a river and pulled each of them from my gums whenever I refused to tell them where my mother was hiding,” Kihyun smiled to himself. “I refused every time.”

Guilt crawled under his skin as he realised he had assumed Kihyun was the same mind as his brother, albeit subdued by a friendlier demeanor, but spoilt and rotten to the core like all rich Royals were. 

“Did it hurt?” he asked dumbly.

“Having my teeth levered out by the point of a knife as two grown men held my head over a river and shook me while I cried?” Kihyun grinned at the mention of violence. “No. It was as soft as the pillowy sleep I find on the beautiful sheets of this foreign castle.”

“I'm sorry,” Hoseok said quietly, although for what he wasn't sure. At his reserved voice Kihyun laughed again and his teeth glittered in the light.

“Do not pity me, stable boy. I am bitter of my position in court, but nothing compares to the fire that burns beneath my skin at the thought that my father remains alive out there. Thanks to him I have never heard my mother's voice. That is a crime I cannot forgive.”

“My father died when I was young,” Hoseok said. “He fought in the Five Year war. Was on the front line until his death.”

“To fight upfront is to be amongst the bravest men alive. I am sorry to hear that, Hoseok. Wars are terrible, for royalty and commonfolk alike.” For some strange reason, Kihyun’s voice sounded sincere in it’s condolences. “But you have a grandfather, no? And a mother. People you love. People you would do anything to protect?”

“Yes?”

“Would you kill for your family, Hoseok? Would you betray others for their safety?”

Hoseok stopped walking.

His brown eyes flickered up to meet Kihyun’s passive stare.

“What?” he whispered. The air stuck in his throat as a thousand spiders crawled their way into his lungs.

“Sorry. My tongue sometimes speaks of its own accord,” The Prince laughed airily and waved a hand at the entrance looming in front of them. “It seems we have arrived at your work, just in time as well. How lucky. Remember what I said about my brother, stable boy. He is young. Give him a chance.”

When Kihyun turned to exit, he left a strange blanket of unease muffling Hoseok’s thoughts. The way he had spun to face him with an innocent tilt of his head. The casual mention of violence. The insinuation that Hoseok would kill more than once.

Upon seeing the small man dripping in red lace grow smaller with distance, however, Hoseok found his heart aching for more.

“Why is Minhyuk under Prince Im’s protection and not the Kings?” he asked suddenly. Kihyun paused. When he turned slowly is mouth had pulled into an unreadable smile that bared his golden teeth more than necessary.

The silence dragged on.

“Have you ever seen Minhyuk undressed, stable boy?” Prince Kihyun’s voice echoed off the stone walls.

“No..?”

“Minhyuk appeared on our doorstep at the age of fifteen. He had a coat made out of a pelt he had skinned himself. His fingers were frostbitten and his back unrecognisable as flesh.” The chilling man smiled. “He had barely escaped the fires with his life.”

“Oh,” Hoseok breathed.

“The King refused him entry, at first. He was afraid accepting a northern refugee would only anger the golden nation and bring another five year war to our shoulders. Changkyun begged on his knees for two days to save him under his name, no one else. He said that Minhyuk would only ever be his responsibility. If war ensued due to his stay, he would be the one to fight it.”

“At thirteen years old?” Hoseok breathed.

“At thirteen years old,” Kihyun confirmed.

“Why?” The stable boy frowned. It did not make any sense. Every time he had encountered the Prince, he had found him spoilt. Arrogant. A petulant child who could not conceive the idea of empathy for another human, let alone capable of running a Kingdom.

“Because he cared.” Kihyun said simply.

And then he was gone.

His shadow lingered in Hoseok’s mind and his sharp words picked apart his thoughts.

Hoseok went to bed that night with uneasiness heavy in his heart. He slept in total, sensory darkness, having blown out every single torch and fumbled his way to his bed alone. He did not trust Prince Chae and his Fire Breathers existing in the same place as him. He did not trust them at all.

He thought of Minhyuk and his withdrawn eyes and his whispery laugh and brilliant, blinding smile. His chest ached with pain and he swallowed down the sympathy - he was not meant to feel for the Royals who had hurt him and his family so terribly in the past.

He wondered how a nation could be so cruel as to raze an entire Kingdom unprovoked.

Flames licked his fingertips in his fitful sleep, and when he woke he swore they still burned.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no energy bc of work atm so this took me three days to read through before updating. im trying to write. it's just hard ;;  
> if u mad lads wanna ask me anything bout this fic or any of my others feel free to hit up my curiouscat [here.](https://curiouscat.me/shinsxoh) yes that includes asking about updates and/or my last name and credit card number. im chill. have a good day my dudes  
> 


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back again lads bet u thought u'd seen the last of me  
> the writing in this is terrible i have no concept of pacing or grammar or adjectives besides "gentle" but u know what? it's royal au content so u better be happy  
> enjoy <3

The Fire Breather’s stallions were bigger than any horse Hoseok had ever seen.

Bulkier even than the cart horses of the village or the decorative steeds of the Royal grounds. Each rippling muscle bulged around broad shoulders and stocky legs - creatures built for the harsh conditions of desert war and branded with crests on their hind. Their hair was braided with red thread and orange feathers and their scaled saddles dripped with tassels, charms and beads. 

The stable boy had expected Prince Chae to bring his own steed to the stables himself, perhaps surrounded by his feared and famed Warriors, and instructed Hoseok of just how to care for them. As it was, the elusive Prince had done no such thing. Hoseok had entered the stables the next watery dawn to find a note tacked to the desk and the doors swung right open. Dewy air filled the usually stuffy stable, casting blue light on golden pillars and revealing seven horses tied to the picks outside.

Hoseok had not been a fool. He could see the red indents pressing into the animal's necks.

The Fire Breathers liked to whip their horses, it seemed.

“We respect the Middleground Stable Master’s status of commonfolk heritage and therefore refrain from meeting or intimidating in person for fear of upsetting a sensitive past. Most of our stallions are housed by the river tents, along with our entourage of warriors, but these are that of my closest men. Take care of them well. Sincerely, Prince Chae, son of the Greatest Warrior, next in line to the Southern Sun Kingdom.” Lin said quietly, reading from the slip of parchment tacked by a wax sun seal.

Hoseok exhaled.

How dare the people who had killed his father be so courteous without return?

“How do we take care of horses such as these, Hoseok?” Jae murmured, body hunched as if worried for an outburst.

It was then Hoseok remembered the two little boys had never experienced the war. They were too young. Too naive. They saw the Five Years War as something of myth, of terror, and probably looked upon the staggering steeds and carefully crafted letter as a threat of violence or perhaps intimidation.

It had effected Hoseok in more ways than he could imagine. Had destroyed his people from the inside out. 

It would not destroy those who had never seen it. Hoseok refused.

“Like usual,” the commoner said before stretching out his arms and making his way to where the seven horses were tied. “Come on. Let’s get them untacked.”

Lin and Jae followed, and they worked all morn together into the bright afternoon arranging stables for each of the new animals.

For the most part, however, the stable boy was kept out of Royal affairs surrounding the Fire Breathers. Besides from his strange talk with Kihyun he knew nothing of their handling, politics or life. He resided in a completely different wing of the castle. There was no hint of crossover throughout. No taste of what occurred behind closed doors.

When Hoseok had first entered the castle - had slept upon a bed for the first time in his life, had walked halls more opulent than any structure he could conceive by imagination - he had made the promise in the cold dead of night by a single flickering candle that he would never, in his life, trust a Royal.

One person was trying to change that. 

Not a man, hardly a boy; a mere whisper of a presence that seemed accustomed to hovering just out of sight behind others his age but who held sunshine locked carefully away in a cold bodice, only letting Hoseok see.

And Hoseok  _ did  _ see. When the Northern Prince knocked softly upon his bedroom door a few nights after the Fire Breathers had paraded into the castle he entered in a quiet storm of sadness. An idle throb of hurt had burned in Hoseok’s chest. He had wished to take away every ounce of his pain. 

And then Minhyuk had smiled. As if nothing had happened. As if Hoseok had not watched crystallite tears track down his pale cheeks, as if he did not harbour the guilt of what Kihyun had told him without permission.

As if his entire people had not perished and he was the only blue eyed man left.

“Guess what?” the Northerner said with a flourish, collapsing on Hoseok’s plain wooden chair as if claiming it belonged to him.

  
Hoseok closed the door with a gentle thud. “What?”   
  
“I have decided you are rather handsome,” he declared. There was an air of humour to his quiet voice and Hoseok coughed out a laugh around the water he sipped from a goblet. “And that is rather frustrating because you are everything I am obligated to despise in Middleground custom. But I like you, commoner, and you are kind, and I wish to keep you as my friend.”

“Oh? So now we are friends?” Hoseok raised a playful eyebrow. “I thought you found me disgusting.”

“I do! I had to request a bath in your favour when you first arrived!” Minhyuk laughed. It was a sound like the fall of snow on soft ground and stoked the coals of Hoseok’s heart. “But you attempted to comfort me the other night when I was upset. Nobody does that much for me since I do not have attendants. It warmed my frozen soul a commoner should care for me so.”

Hoseok shrugged and looked down at his silk bed sheets. The woven satin glistened under the flickering light. Somewhere deep in the tumultuous recesses of his mind, the guilt at his fondness for the Royal ate away at everything he understood. What would his Grandfather say? To know he valued a rich man? To know he cared?

“His Highness Prince Kihyun told me about.. About where you come from,” the stable boy murmured. 

Minhyuk stilled.

His watery eyes glistened with apprehension and his shoulders folded upon themselves.

And then Hoseok said, “My father died. In the war. I was eight.”

Minhyuk looked at him.

There was a moment, then, like the first break of dawn on the chalky horizon or the bird call of a raven at sunset. A realisation. An understanding.

And so Minhyuk said, with words barely audible, “..I was fifteen when it happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let us not talk of it,” Minhyuk murmured. “I only wish to talk of good things with you. My friend.”

Hoseok opened his mouth to protest.

He wanted to ask. He needed to ask. Why did he choose to stay now he was old enough to leave? How had it felt, when the Fire Breathers had stormed his kingdom? Was there any warning? Was he truly the only one left?

Why, for just a moment, did it seem like Changkyun cared so much for him?

For a second his ugly instincts reared their head. Typical commonfolk incontinence. 

And then he took a long deep breath and swallowed the words down.

“Have I ever told you I like your eyes?” he asked. The uncomfortably swollen air dissipated into clouds of firelight and cold stone walls.

Minhyuk laughed and the tips of his ears turned a light pink.

“A few times, yes.”

The next night, Hoseok brought a slice of apple tart to his room upon returning after a long days work. As it was, the Prince was already waiting for him, stood by the edge of his bed and running his hands over the coins on the beside.

He broke out into a blinding white smile when Hoseok entered. The commoner never got tired of it.

That night they talked and laughed and argued over the proper way to eat pie (Hoseok said it was alright to pick the slice up and bite off chunks, whereas Minhyuk argued for the use of cutlery to prolong the taste). When he left the atmosphere was light and happy and Hoseok was once again reminded of how much he considered the strange Northern Royal a friend.

Every day he always made sure to pick up a slice of apple tart and take it back to his room.

Sometimes Minhyuk would knock and enter late at night. The Northern Prince would curl up on his chair - knees under his chin and plate held in his hand - while they talked about everything and nothing much at all. Other times he would not, and Hoseok would eat the pie so as not to waste food and slip into deep slumber shortly after.

Neither of them really talked of the Fire Prince and his men. The ignorance was bliss. It put them both at ease. They were like ghosts in the castle; tainting their words carefully as they danced around the subject.

Minhyuk did, however, talk of other things. He could spend entire hours babbling about the Royal court. About the men of the inner circle, about the fact Prince Chae now sat at their Royal dinners as did his closest adviser, Han Oisen.

Sometimes Hoseok wondered why the Northern Prince trusted him so easily but then he figured Minhyuk did not get to talk much to other people.

“I am so incredibly bored of preparation meetings,” Minhyuk pouted one evening while squishing the soft apple and watching it ooze between the prongs of the fork. “Changkyun must attend every single one and so I must stand behind him. Do you know what it is like to stand for six hours while they discuss what to wear to the ball to match the tapestries? It is perhaps the most tedious experience of my life.”

“There’s gonna be a ball?” Hoseok asked, confused. When Minhyuk’s icy eyes narrowed, the stable boy pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled. “Sorry. There is going to be a ball?”

“Yes. It is in a few days time. I am not invited.”

“Neither am I. I wouldn’t - sorry, would not mind attending, though. It might be funny.”

Minhyuk looked at him for a long time, lost in deep thoughts Hoseok could not reach out and catch.

Then he turned back to his apple tart and no more was said.

Minhyuk’s company did nothing to dispel the unwelcome feeling that crept into his heart and poisoned his mind. There was no familiarity to be found in the cold castle. He wished to return home, missed his mother greatly, but no matter how many times he asked the Northern Royal when he would be permitted he got no real answer in return. There were always excuses - The King had no time for a hearing, Minhyuk himself had no authority, it was dangerous as commonfolk to leave the castle with talks of rebellion in the village.

It accumulated one day, a week after the Fire Breathers arrival, when one of the King’s many scribes had provided him with an extensive list of tasks and maintenance. The uptight man had handed him the wax scroll with a wrinkled nose of distaste detailing how, should Hoseok require any extra equipment, he were to write up a catalogue of demands and they would provide him with the required inventory.

“But I cannot read or write,” Hoseok had protested, juggling the heavy paper in his arms.

“That is not my problem,” the scribe had said and disappeared. 

That day Hoseok combed every inch of the stables with Lin and Jae following his every step with a quill in one hand and parchment in the other while the commoner called out the names and amount of everything they needed.

When it came to signing it, Hoseok stared at the paper with complete hopelessness. The parchment was scribbled with seeping ink that meant nothing to him. It was just swirls of pretty patterns that he knew formed words but did not know what those words were.

Figuring out how to hold the quill had been difficult enough. Dipping it into the ink had procured more problems, splattering black across Lin’s neat handwriting and possibly obscuring important details.

He focused on the guide Jae had drawn out for him on a scrap piece of paper. 

He bit his lip so hard in focus it bled and filled his mouth with the taste of rusted metal. Slowly, carefully, with more precision in his shaky, calloused hands than Hoseok thought possible, he attempted to write his name.

By the time he had finished his head was pounding in concentration, but it was there. Printed at the bottom in splotchy black ink.

‘ _ Lee Hoseok. _ ’

He was strangely proud of the first ever words he had written and held the drying ink to the candle with surprising caution, wanting the words to cement as neat as possible.

Later that night he stood in his small washroom in soft clothes made by the castle seamstresses themselves. He looked at his ink covered hands with the black shining in the firelight like fresh blood. His dirtied face stared at him from the smeared surface of the mounted mirror, brown eyes dull below ash tinged hair, skin paler than when he had started work over three weeks ago but still considerably more sun weathered than his Royal counterparts.

The angry red line cutting across his cheek had been stitched together by a scab and now looked set to fade into a thin white scar. 

The day he’d saved the Prince’s life seemed so long ago. A lighter time. Filled with dewy air and watery sunlight and the ability to run, run, far far away. Now all Hoseok felt was trapped.

The commoner had had enough.

He needed to visit home, rules be damned.

Lee Hoseok had and always would be commonfolk. Some foolish rule from a foolish King he had only talked to once would not stop him being what he was.

With surprising ease Hoseok slipped the red leather knife into his boot - the one carved with his initials, the one he had used to secure his entry into the castle - gently shook his four golden coins into a pouch of leather tied to his belt and threw on a lionskin overthrow. Unhooking a torch and closing the door with a soft thud, Hoseok found his way to the stables with purpose. He was no longer hindered by the architecture of the complex corridors. He knew the way.

The golden stables were quiet at night. Hoseok stepped into the familiar smell of hay and horse and the comforting breathing of the creatures which slept.

One time, when Minhyuk had visited him in the stables, the Northern Prince had told him the name of the prettiest mare in the company.

Lady was a beautiful creature. The typical white of Middleground horses, supple and hearty and gentle, a horse Hoseok could only have dreamed of.

It was almost foolish how quickly he fell into the familiar pattern of rigging her. He led her from the pen and adjusted the saddle gleaming with gold and green before hoisting himself up and over with the help of silver stirrups. The chill of nighttime dragged upon his damp skin and drew dark clouds of breath from his mouth while he manoeuvred the horse into a slow trot.

It was so comforting to fall into the rise and fall of horseriding. It made his chest ache with homesickness he had buried beneath his busy schedule.

As he reached the giant stone wall that imposed it’s forbidden message on the Kingdom, he guided Lady with a twist of the reigns to an opening where the castle grounds led into the forest of the surrounding area.

A single guard stepped out from the shadows. His sword swung at his belt and the torch he held in his hand cast terrifying shadows over a suspicious face.

“Good evening,” Hoseok said with an easy smile. 

“I am afraid I cannot let you past,” the guard said with a frown. His light eyes scanned Hoseok’s demeanour - from the lionskin cape to the knife hilt above his boot. “We are forbidden to allow any men in or out of this castle unless directly instructed by His Majesty The King.”

It seemed to Hoseok that the walls were not there to keep enemies out, but keep him in.

But if there was one thing Hoseok knew about men - all men, whether of noble or common birth - was that the temptation of gold could cast any loyalties aside.

Hoseok fished in his velvet pouch for a moment before flicking a coin in the guards direction.

“How about now?” Hoseok raised an eyebrow.

The guard’s wide eyes stared at the golden Sopher he had caught in awe. There was a moment in which his round face flickered in hesitation before he stepped to the side and offered a guilty bow.

“Return before sunrise.”

The gate clinked open as the single man turned the metal contraption. Hoseok waited, Lady growing impatient at the noise, rearing back and forth and hooved clipping on the stone underpass of the castle wall, before Hoseok was finally free.

The overwhelming lightness of his heart upon leaving the castle wall told Hoseok that he was finally on his way home.

He shouted a command at Lady, digging the pointed heels into the soft underbelly of the creature. She reared with a loud call and sped into a gallop down the path of the castle hill.

Hoseok rode through the night as a shadow. A ghost of a man sat upon a ghost of a horse, wearing Royal fabric as he galloped through the quiet streets. Hoseok took in the smell of sea-salt and dirt and felt happiness like no other when the river-breeze caressed his face and the wooden walkways echoed underneath him. He rode and he rode and he rode through the village he had missed with laughter on his lips, until, eventually, he ascended from the town and began the journey through the walkway to his home.

There was a strange sense of anxiety clutching his mind but his heart swelled with anticipation.

When he saw his house for the first time in three weeks, he felt as if it had all been worth it.

The hut was smaller than he remembered. Nobody had kept the alter running and it lay dry in the darkness surrounding the stone walls and rickety roof.

He tied the horse to the fence, straightened his collar with an inhale, and pushed open the door to his home.

Inside was lit by a single candle flickering on the rotten tabletop. Sat curled on a rickety chair in a floaty sodden gown with grey hair long and knotted was his mother.

She startled at the noise of his entry and her vacant eyes grew wide.

“Hanbin?” she whispered.

Hoseok’s chest was hollow.

“No, ma,” he murmured, removing his Royal overthrow, quiet so as not to disturb the night. “It’s me. It’s Hoseok, your son, remember?”

His mother paused before reaching out a hand.

“Is that really you, Hanbin? I have waited so long. So long-”

“Mother,” Hoseok dropped his cloak and ran forward to kneel by the woman. He took her shaking face in his cold hands and steadied her panic. “Ma. It's me, Hoseok. Your son, not your husband. Look at me.”

For a moment the woman's face was blank. Then her frantic gaze focused on his face and her pupils dilated.

"Oh,” she exhaled. “Oh, gosh, my son. My beautiful son. I missed you."   
  
Hoseok smiled. Relief flooded his body and he pressed a homesick kiss to her cheek. "I am glad you are alright. I worried about you every moment.”   
  
“What is this?” his mother whispered, taking a hold of his silk clothes. “You look like a king. Are you a king now, son?”   
  
Hoseok laughed fondly and took his mother’s hands. "Ma, I'm still a stable boy, same as always."

“The birds told me you would be King,” she smiled briefly - a ghost of an expression, barely there in her vacant eyes - and then she settled once again into watching the flame before her.

"You two sure are a sight."   


The sound echoed in the quiet hut and Hoseok spun in surprise.

"Grandfather!" he called and launched himself into his open arms.

The hug felt like coming home.   
  
"Hello, son," the old man said, stroking his head and filling his nose with the homely scents of smoke and wood and work. "Youse dressed like a Royal now.”

“Don’t insult me.”

His grandfather guffawed loudly and slapped him on the back. Pulling out a chair, he lowered himself down with a grimace - leg creaking with each movement - and allowed Hoseok to follow eagerly.

It felt strange sitting in his small home where every sound could be heard. He was used to the echo of voices and avoidance of touch with grand torches in every corner. The pressing ceiling and warmth from other bodies seemed unfamiliar now.

"Tell me everything," his Grandfather instructed. There was the achingly familiar glint of commonfolk mischief in his eyes. Oh, how he had missed home. “I wanna know ev’rything about your adventures. Come on.”

Hoseok grinned. “The castle is.. It’s everything you would expect, but also it ain’t anywhere near. Each room is wider than a river, each ceiling higher than the sky! People give out Drachens as if they are piks. Food piles high on every table, I don’t think I’ve ever been as full as I am right now. Oh! and they gave me a bed.”

“A bed,” the old man exhaled in awe. “A real bed. By the Giants. Do you like it there, then?”

Hoseok shrugged and picked at the rotting wood. Had their table always been so dirty? “It is alright. They don't like me because I am commonfolk. I'm not welcome there.”

“Is the brat Prince as spoilt as they say?”

“Yes. Definitely. He ain’t no ruler,” Hoseok’s nose wrinkled while thinking of the delicate Prince Im and his scathing prejudice. “I do not think there is one man in that wretched castle who knows what it’s like to suffer.”

The moment he said it, guilt rose up like a wave and crashed down around his beating heart.

Minhyuk and his people. Kihyun and his father. 

They had suffered. They knew what it was like to have nothing.

He swallowed his sympathy for the Royals despite the sharpness of each thought.

When the stable boy returned to the present, he found the old man staring at him with hilarity barely concealed on his weathered face.

“What?” Hoseok chuckled nervously, watching the old man pull a stricken face with pursed lips

“Oh, I do not  _ think _ there is one man in that  _ wretched castle _ -”

“Shut up!” Hoseok burst into laughter. “I ain't talk like that!”

“You sound like a Royal now, boy. Should I be bowing? Offer my life to you?”

“You don’t understand,” Hoseok whined. “I am shadowed by Prince Minhyuk most of the time. If I speak like a commoner, he scolds me.”

His Grandfather’s face soured. “You ain’t let a Royal scold you, son. You’re better than that.”

“I didn't even know Minhyuk existed until I got to the castle,” he said in defence. For some reason, he felt as if he had disappointed the old man. “Did you know he's a refugee, from the Northern Territories? He has blue eyes and white hair. I didn't even realise there were Northern Territories, no traveller had spoken of them.”

“There’s a Northern man housed in a Middleground castle?” The greying man raised a bushy eyebrow. The firelight flickered on his wrinkled features and his mother hummed beside them. “What’s his relationship to the brat?”

“Prince Im likes him. A lot. He’s nicer than the Sun Prince so I don’t mind him.”   
  
At the mention of the Sun Prince his Grandfather’s eyes hardened and jaw tightened. “Mm. The marriage to the enemy, headed by that bastard son of the barbarian who slaughtered our men. Tell me, is he a warrior, this man who is happy to marry his sister in alliance to the enemy? Is he planning something secret? Who was in his court? This.. this “Sun Prince’?"   
  
Hoseok thought for a moment. "Han Oisen, Kim Sejoo, Om Bishan. They are the three who sit with Prince Chae at dinner. All Southern names, but Minhyuk talks about court instances with me constantly."   
  
"Han Oisen is in the castle?” The old man sat back. “I know that bastard too. Fought his legion all those years ago. Where is he staying?"

"The left wing I think? I was exploring the castle the other day and came across where the visiting Southern Kingdom are housed. The entrance is guarded by these big soldiers - you know, like the ones you and father would have fought? They’re taller and stronger than any man in Middleground and inked with lines from head to toe.” Hoseok opened and closed his mouth before shrugging meekly. “I think they’ve changed. Prince Hyungwon, he… he’s tame. I don't trust him, but he's charming from afar. He seems to have gone through his father's court to remove those most violent. Like he’s cleansing it.”

“Or preparing for another war,” the other said gruffly. “Don’t speak kindly ‘bout the Fire Breathers to me, son. I saw their destruction first hand. Savages, all of them.”

To diffuse the tension now threatening to choke him, Hoseok reached into his pocket and revealed the pouch of gold that he shook onto the table. Each coin echoed through the night and lay flat on the rotten wood.

“Shit, son,” his Grandfather breathed and Hoseok laughed, shy and yet proud, while the old man took a Drachen in his hand and weighed it with awe painting his face.

“I was going to buy you and ma beds in the market and stock the cupboards, but I snuck out the castle just to see you both. Risked my life since visits are prohibited.”

“Don’t worry your head, boy. I’ll visit market in morning,” the old man’s eyes sparkled as he ran his calloused fingers over the gold, and they seemed to shake as if he could not believe it was real. “How did you sneak out?” 

“Round the Eastern wing the paddocks extend around the courtyard towers. There’s this weakness in the walls where most traders enter with supplies - just a small tunnel guarded by one guard. All I had to do was bribe him.”

His grandfather hit him on the shoulder with a wide grin. “That a boy. Right under the rotten royals noses. Don’t worry if ya can’t visit too often. This here is enough for years.”

“If you need anything specific - more gold, certain fabric - please ask. I’ll do what I can to help. I’m sorry. It’s not more.” Hoseok’s voice cracked, and he hung his head.“But I think.. I think we can finally be alright."

It was all worth it. It had to be. Now they had money, they had savings, they would not go hungry for years and years to come.

His eyes stung and he wiped at them violently.

“Oi, son,” his Grandfather said and the stable boy looked up. A greedy stare took in the gold on the table, and they shimmered with the pain that war had caused him, and the hunger that had plagued Hoseok and his mother. “You’ve given us more than we could ever hope for. Your father would be proud.”

Hoseok inhaled.

His cheeks felt wet. They never mentioned his father. They danced around his existence as if he was never a man after all. To hear the person Hoseok considered a parent tell him so, it made his heart ache like a thousand fires had been set alight all at once, as if the Southern Nation torched his heart with love.

“Thanks Grandfather,” he whispered. The words sounded like he was a child once again.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

The ride back to the castle felt different from his journey home. Odd nausea stirred in his gut and the familiar pathway through the village he grew up in was pressingly silent and unsettlingly unfamiliar.

He reached the castle at the coldest point of the night, when the cloudy moon made the grass glow a faint blue and the walled shadows were a black pit of nothingness.

Hoseok’s heart sank when Lady approached the entryway at a slow trot. The previous Knight was no longer sat bored against the stone fiddling with a Sopher in his hand.

Instead, Hoseok’s blood froze when Princeguard Hyunwoo himself emerged from the shadows in his regal glory.

Hoseok pulled Lady to a stop in the stone passage. The horse stepped nervously in the dim tunnel, mimicking Hoseok’s quiet nausea as Hyunwoo motioned for him to dismount without a word.

Hoseok did. He was all too aware of the jewelled sword at the others side and the stoic expression that sent chills down his spine.

“I can explain-” he began, but the Princeguard held up a strong hand which silenced him.

“Were you visiting your family?” he asked.

“..What?”

“I inquired, were you visiting your family?”

Hoseok opened his mouth in wary agreement. Was this some sort of Royal trickery?

“..Yes, I was.”

“Then there is nothing here to discuss,” the Princeguard said calmly. He pat Lady on the hind, his jewelled cuffs glittering in the firelight.

Hoseok frowned.

“Are you not about to punish me for leaving without permission?”

Hyunwoo shrugged. 

“It is not my business what you chose to do. You did not endanger my Prince by wishing to visit those dearest to you, so, therefore, I see no reason for punishment.”

The stable boy eyed the Knight cautiously but he felt that familiar warmth. Hyunwoo was so like him in appearance, there was no barrier of eyes or hair that put him off.

“Is that not- doesn’t that betray the King?”

“I am not loyal to the King. I am loyal to Prince Im. It is a terrible decision to put me on any sort of outpost.”

Hoseok’s confusion only grew. Was that a joke? Was he meant to laugh? Was this his opportunity to slip away and hope no repercussions came?

As it was, Hoseok had no time to gently excuse himself.

“I am going to sit for a while,” The Princeguard said suddenly. “Do you wish to join?”

Hoseok watched Hyunwoo take careful steps up to the stone archway into the guards Armsroom and hesitated.

Hoseok figured it was not a genuine invitation. Rather, a thinly veiled command, a tactic to get him alone and question him further about his loyalty to the Prince or the Kingdom or both. To pry into his private life and lock him up in the castle for good. A dull throb echoed in his cheek. The commoner did not forget how it was Hyunwoo himself who had cut him.

Hoseok swallowed the lump in his throat and followed the Princeguard inside.

The Armsroom was small and dark, a fire lit in the centre, a few tables with goblets and swordsgear strewn around the corners. It smelled of dampness and lichen and the single small window was encased in a long, depressing frame of stone.

“Why aren't you guarding Prince Im?” Hoseok asked, watching the large man take a casual seat by the fire.

Hyunwoo grunted. “His highness sent me here tonight as a punishment for my annoyance.”

“What did you do?”

“Insinuate you were more handsome than him.”

Hoseok snickered. The sound echoed through the quiet night and even seemed contagious for, to his surprise, the Princeguard’s usually indifferent face screwed up in a sheepish smile. His chest rumbled gently with laughter and his eyes crinkled into crows feet.

“You ain’t wrong,” Hoseok said and let himself sit opposite the Knight on the cold floor. The broad man offered him a roll of bread and took it gratefully. Was the Princeguard even that terrible? "Do you mind being out here?”

Hyunwoo shrugged and tore off some of the loaf of bread in his hand to eat.

“You don’t talk much.” Hoseok pointed out.

Hyunwoo smiled to himself. “Changkyun says that too.”

“Why not?”

“My sword talks for me,” he said simply.

Hoseok's gaze flickered to the sword at his waist. The gold and green hilt glinted dully in the firelight. Sharpened metal peeked from where it had been dislodged from the sheath.

“Have you ever killed somebody?” Hoseok asked. The questions just kept coming as he fell more at ease. Perhaps this was not a trick. Perhaps Hyunwoo was just a little lonely.

It was a strange thought, but Hoseok could not shake it from his mind.

Hyungwon said, “Yes. Many people.”

“How many?”

Hyunwoo seemed to think about it.

“Fifty, perhaps? Disregarding the dead of the Battle of Shinshi”

“You fought at the battle of Shinshi?” Hoseok asked incredulously.

Hyunwoo nodded and swallowed around his bread.

The Battle of Shinshi was often called the True End to the Five Year War. While the truce had been called six years previously, the Highland, Middleground and Southern armies had all gathered at the hill of Shinshi - the Hill of the Giants - to engage in one disastrous battle. It had ended with massacres on every side and had been nicknamed the Battle of Blood for the ground had become sodden with death.

“It was my sixteenth summer. It was the battle that proved me suitable as Changkyun’s guard. Youngest Princeguard in all of Middleground's history,” Hyunwoo said. While he spoke he pulled down his pressed collar to reveal a knife slash cutting across the bone and marring the flesh. “See? It was a bloodbath.”

Hoseok swallowed, staring at the smooth line. An uneasy feeling settled back in his stomach. “Do you.. Enjoy killing people?”

“Not at all.” Hyunwoo replied quietly and went back to eating his bread. “However, if it saves My Prince, then I shall without question.”

_ My Prince. _

For some reason, the possessive pronoun resonated in Hoseok’s chest. The Princeguard talked of Changkyun reverently. With awe. With adoration.

“You are loyal to him.” the commoner said. Not a question, but a statement.

Hyunwoo nodded.

“I value his life more than my own.”

Hoseok picked at the loaf of bread on the cold floor between them. The crumbs rubbed off on his unkempt fingers and his mind relayed his past weeks in the castle.

Why was every man he met enamoured by the spoilt Prince? Minhyuk, talking of him so reverently, allowing him to comfort him in soul-crushing sadness. Kihyun, asking for the stable boy to not think of his step-brother so harshly. Hyunwoo and his clear adoration for the boy, his obvious need to give his life to the future King.

What was so great about the Prince who acted as a child?

It was then that Hoseok’s eyes caught on a checkered slab thrown onto the cold floor.

“You play Bongsang?” he asked in surprise, reaching over to grab the board and gasping at the rattle of playing sticks concealed underneath.

Hyunwoo’s mouth twitched upwards. “Yes, I do.”

“But it is a commonfolk game!”

“I enjoy it,” Hyunwoo smiled. “Would you like to play?”

Hyunwoo did not have to ask twice.

They played until the sun rose and streamed through the thin window slit. Hoseok was astounded by the Princeguards board game ability. He had the uncanny knack of figuring out where the stable boy was going to move next no matter his throw, and the commoner loved it when the nobleman burst into shy laughter with uneven eyes and buck teeth after he won for the fifth time in a row.

“Are you sure you’re not commonfolk?” Hoseok had asked, laughing, throwing down his losing pieces once again. “You play like you were taught it before you could pick up a sword.”

“And you play without thinking,” Hyunwoo explained with a smile. “You would be terrible in court. You must predict your opponent's next move, you cannot launch into any situation without a plan.”

“Don’t lecture me. You’re worse than Minhyuk,”

Hyunwoo laughed.

They sat and talked for a while until, eventually, the sun grew brighter than their fire and Hoseok left to return to his stable.

Watching the sun rise above the castle wall while he led Lady inside, Hoseok felt as if he were at the edge of the world, holding it all in the palm of his hands.

Minhyuk was his friend. Hyunwoo did not hate him. For some reason, it felt as if Hoseok was finding a small place of the castle to belong to, no matter how temporary it may be.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

Time passed faster once he had visited his family. Re-energised after seeing his mother well and knowing they had more gold than they would dare pray for, Hoseok poured himself into work, Lin and Jae watching him hammer bridles or shape horseshoes or clean pens with awe on their round cherub faces.

“You are rather marvellous, Sir,” Lin had said one day, holding a horse still while Hoseok picked at its shoe.

The stable boy had laughed and ran a dirty hand through his messy hair. “Call me Hoseok, Lin.”

When he returned that evening in an aura of tiredness and sweat, he had frowned upon finding a letter placed lightly on his pillow. There was not a payment due for two more days - who was writing to him when he could not read?

He thumbed open the wax stamp and pulled out the paper.

It was a neat map drawn on parchment. Lines indicated corridors - stairs were drawn as blocks, and certain statues were detailed with ink as reminders of where to turn.

At the end a room was circled violently and a snowflake was drawn by the bed.

Minhyuk.

All exhaustion fled his body when Hoseok realised the Northern Prince was requesting his presence in his room, and the stable boy escaped his own quarters in a flash, heavy footsteps echoing on stone while he hurried past servants and courtiers alike in his journey. He clutched the paper in odd excitement, breathless gaze following each wordless instruction like he knew the path already.

Minhyuk had not written a single word for he knew the stable boy could not read.

When Hoseok finally reached the odd part of the castle, he ducked behind a pillar to let two patrolling Knights past, before slipping into the Royal wing with uneasy nerves pulling his stomach to shreds.

As a matter of fact, the commoner was so focused on following the map that he did not notice them until it was almost too late.

Hoseok gasped and darted into an alcove behind a statue.

Guards.

There were two of them. Dressed in sharply tailored white and gold and stood with swords in front of a wooden door carved with a six-spoked snowflake.

For whatever reason it had not occurred to him the Northern Prince would be guarded. It also seemed unlikely he could walk up to them and request entry.

There was only one thing to do.

Hoseok reached his hand up and twisted the metal spike attached to the spear of the statue jutting out of the alcove. It broke off with a difficult grimace and the cold surface pricked his fingers. He closed his eyes and sent a prayer to whatever Earth God was listening before he spun around and threw the point down the corridor like a knife. It landed in the heart of a mountain lion statue - the impact itself was enough to leave his ears ringing for a long few moments.

The guards launched into action. Shouting, their faces alert, they ran down the hallway in pursuit of a threat that wasn’t there.

Hoseok pressed himself tight against the inside of the alcove and squeezed his eyes shut as the wind brushed against his cheek.

Then he ran. 

Stumbling out into the hallway, past the open stretch of crossroads, and then straight into the wood of the entryway.

He barged open the door and slammed it shut behind him.

“There was absolutely no need to damage a priceless statue to make an entrance, commoner.”

The voice was soft and yet exuberant. With the familiar odd accent, Hoseok knew it was Minhyuk, and the mischievous smile was already embedded on his face as he turned.

“You know me,” Hoseok grinned. “Ain’t never miss an opportunity to break the rules.”

Minhyuk’s room was larger than Hoseok’s, and although plain for a Royal, still somewhat luxurious. Tapestries hung from the low ceiling and the canopy bed had drapes with stitched embroidery. Every woven cloth depicted scenes of snowy mountains, of glaciers and frozen rivers, of the subtle blur of ice on the tips of dewy leaves, of ice-cats running through white undergrowth.

The landscapes were discoloured by the lighting, however. The snow echoed more of rotten egg shells than pristine alabaster. The mountains were flat under the flicker of firelight and the graceful ice-cat seemed trapped within its own habitat.

On the silk covers of his bed lay a sky-blue ball gown bejewelled with diamonds, and Hoseok frowned at the sight in the otherwise deep maroons of the castle room. Why would Minhyuk have such an extravagant ladies garment lying on his bed?

Actually, why had he invited him here in the first place?

Hoseok noticed with a curious gaze that every torch had a glass casing as if to protect the inhabitants from fire.

Eventually Hoseok’s stare landed on Minhyuk.

The stable boy sucked in a sharp breath and his heart stuttered in his chest.

“Oh Gods,” he whispered, blood cracking as it froze in his veins.

Minhyuk wore only nightly undergarments. The thin white material hung on his slim frame but that was not what made the stable boy gasp. With the shorts cut off at the knees and the roped sleeves finishing at his shoulder blades, Minhyuk’s skin was exposed for the first time.

There was not an inch of it unscarred.

“It’s rude to stare,” Minhyuk said. It was cloaked in a teasing smile but still uncertain. Wary. He could not meet Hoseok’s eyes.

Hoseok was speechless.

He stepped forward and gingerly slipped Minhyuk’s hand within his own to hold it up. Each flicker of firelight exaggerated the ridges of the scars. Some were an angry red, others a muted lavender, but none of them were the ghostly pale skin of his face.

They felt rough in some places and smooth in the stretch of others. Travelling up his arm did nothing to quieten the severity. Hoseok’s gaze walked from his fingers to his forearms to the shoulders beneath the loose undergarment. They were all scarred. Grotesque pulling of skin as the tendons grasped what they could, twisting and pulling and distorting the tissue between his arm and torso as if mountains and rivers formed on his very skin. Some shone in the light and others looked as if they were still melting in the heat.

“How?” he asked, barely audible. Emotions were swelling in his throat and threatening to spill out his eyes.

"Are we friends?" Minhyuk asked. 

"Yes. I.. you are the closest friend I've ever had."

Minhyuk looked at him. A moment passed - much like before, of understanding. Of the sun breaking through the first clouds of a storm. Of a bite of fresh bread after a week of starvation.

“Violence was never a skill we valued, us Northerners. We hunted ice cats and seals, but we had no form of defence. There was no need.” Minhyuk began softly. His words felt like hope and fear all at once. “When they came- when they stormed my Kingdom after our Elders refused to concede to their demands-” 

Minhyuk paused. There was nothing else he needed to say - Hoseok understood. There had been no defence. They had not fought a war. They had simply been slaughtered.

Hoseok’s pained eyes flickered over the angry scars of his arms.

“The Southerners… they razed our buildings to the ground, stuck torches into the brittle wood of our buildings, pushed our canoes onto the river burning with flames. My father went to fight the moment he saw them but he told us to stay put,” Minhyuk’s tone remained light and yet strained. “My mother knew if we stayed in the castle, we'd burn. All we heard was screaming. People called out to us as we ran -  _ Your Majesty, please save us! Save us from their cruel cruel fire!” _

The Northern Prince took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes. His shoulders stood strong, but his face told otherwise. “They herded us into our church. Hundreds of us forced by these immense men of snake skinned whips and black tattoos and swirling banners of the sun-” he inhaled sharply and his voice dropped to a whisper - “All women and children into the church, and then they set it alight.”

Hoseok exhaled. He did not wish to hear this. The torches that lit the room suddenly seemed dangerous, threatening. The smoke threatened to bunch around his throat and rub soot into his eyes. 

“All I heard was screaming,” Minhyuk’s hands began to shake and his eyes squeezed tighter shut. Hoseok stood there, helpless. He wanted Minhyuk to stop. But they were friends now - and it seemed Minhyuk did not have any others to talk to. “They threw fire from above and it hurt. They had - had special masks and- and lit bundles of oil to throw- one hit me here and… pain.”

Minhyuk opened his eyes and ghosted a hand across his shoulder. The burns were so bad under the hem of his undergarments they created a very dip in his frame. The translucent blue of his eyes focused on the empty air, seeing events from long ago play out all over again.

“I will never forget the pain of being burned alive.” he whispered. “My mother- she dragged me through the flames and- and up the stairs to a guard at the-the west entrance and-” the Northern Prince exhaled. “She threw herself on him so I could jump out the window.”

Silence

“I am so sorry,” Hoseok murmured. Minhyuk shook his head.

“They set my home on fire, Hoseok. The white houses, burnt. My people, burnt. I heard the screams as I ran away. Hid in the snow until the Fire Breathers deserted. I woke the next morning and tasted the ashes of my people on my tongue." Minhyuk gestured to the room with a small, sad smile. “I realised I could not stay, so I came to Middleground”

“You made it here alone with these injuries? Travelled all that way?”

“For a day I could not move. I lay in the snow and just hoped for death to take me, but on the third day, I realised I lived for a reason. To keep my people. To make sure something like that never happens again." Minhyuk looked at his palm with a surprising detachment. “I do not know how long it took to reach here. I hid from people I saw - wagon pullers, bandits, lone travellers.

“I caught and skinned icecats for warmth and food. Slept in the snow or curled under leaves. Eventually I reached Middleground and Changkyun saved me. He- he saved me.” A whisper of a smile ghosted on the pale Prince’s face. “The King turned me away. He even suggested they silence me forever so that I could not speak against the men who had burned my Kingdom... But then Changkyun begged on his knees with that little high voice of his and his father could not say no.

“Now this is where I live, but it is not home. Your language is difficult, your nobles unkind. I belong amongst ice and snow and the people of blue eyes, not you.”

Hoseok was silent after his speech. It seemed wrong, somehow, to invade the quiet with his blundering words and boisterous tone. There was something so vulnerable about his Royal friend in that moment and he did not wish to hurt him anymore than he already was.

“Why do you hide them?” Hoseok murmured, gesturing to the scars.

Minhyuk smiled.

“They’re a reminder.” The Prince ran a hand up the ridges of his arm. “Of the pain. The fear. The guilt.”

Anger simmered in Hoseok’s stomach. “You have nothing to be guilty for.”

“I let my people burn.”

“You were a child.”

“Fifteen is no child for you Southerners.”

The commoner gave up. The Northern Prince was nothing if not stubborn.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. Helplessly. 

“Do not be.” Minhyuk’s eyes glittered with a familiar mischief and he gestured to the dress lay neatly on the bed. “You may not feel bad for me, commoner, for I have a plan.”

“I was wondering when would be the right time to bring up the ballgown.”

At that Minhyuk laughed. It was louder than any outburst he had ever heard from the Prince and Hoseok jumped in surprise when his slim hands gripped at his arm and he hunched over in hilarity.

The tension disappeared into the heavy air at the gentle sound of snowstorm giggles.

“Oh, dear. You are terribly delightful. You always make me feel better.”

“You are most welcome, your Highness,” Hoseok teased. “So? What’s the plan?”

“You’re taking me to the ball.”

Hoseok blinked.

“I’m what now?”

“You, Commoner, Stable Boy Lee Hoseok.” Minhyuk picked up the edges of the dramatic ballgown with a smile on his pale face. “Are taking me, Prince Minhyuk of the Northern territories, to the ball. Dressed as a woman.”

Hoseok was dumbfounded. Had the other gone insane?

“That is a terrible plan.”

“I am aware,” The Northern Prince grinned and turned to face him. “However, if you wish to go, then this is the only option.”

Even if Minhyuk was dressed up and could look exactly as a woman (which the commoner did not doubt, for the man was as beautiful as any Princess), the guards would take one look at his own hair and eyes and skin and turn him away with an angry glare.

“Commonfolk do not get invited to balls, Minhyuk,” he deadpanned.

“Neither do refugees.” Minhyuk rolled his eyes. ”What if.. For one night, you weren’t commonfolk?”

The stable boy watched him reach into his bedside drawer. He held his breath when Minhyuk held up a black mask to the light - seamless velvet, gems glittering like stars around the eyes, an almost complete concealment of his face.

“It is a masquerade ball, Stable boy. Nobody would need to see your face. I have many suits given to me as gifts from nobles but I know I shall never wear them. They might fit you perfectly.”

Minhyuk held out the mask and, after brief hesitation, Hoseok took it.

It was almost too daring to accept. Just brushing the black velvet with the pad of his thumb made guilty excitement grip his throat in a vice. 

Why did he want it so badly? Why did he want to experience luxury? To not be scorned upon for his mere existence?

Was he not betraying his family, his people, by having such a terrible part of him long for the fun? Hoseok from a few months ago would have revolted at the idea of such obnoxious goings-on.

But Hoseok from the now? He was tempted by the black mask much like he was tempted by the glint of golden drachens.

Thumbing the jewels in hesitation he whispered, “What about my hair?” 

“How do you feel about coal dye?”

Disbelieving laughter filled the air at the concept.

“What happens if we get caught?” Hoseok said. Was he really thinking of following through? What would his grandfather say?

Minhyuk beamed. “We shall both be cast onto the streets with no titles to our name.”

And that was when everything slot into place.

There was nothing to lose.

Neither of them had titles. Minhyuk’s were not obligatory, not official, merely courtesy. Nobody was required to call him Royalty since he had no status as a refugee.

And Hoseok, well. Hoseok was just commonfolk.

“Well then,” Hoseok grinned and set down the velvet mask on the bed. He straightened his loose white shirt, took the Prince’s scarred hand, and bent to press a gentle kiss to the red skin. “Lee Minhyuk. Would you be so kind as to accompany me to the grandest masquerade ball this castle has ever seen?”

“You commonfolk are vile. Always breaking rules." Minhyuk straightened up as if mocking him, then a soft dewy smile brightened up his face. "But I suppose it would be my pleasure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhh as usual if u dont feel like commenting u can anon me on curiouscat [here](https://curiouscat.me/shinsxoh) uhh hope u enjoyed im feeling a lot better than the past few months and hope i can write lots more !!


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i could have written this better. it's kinda rambly and long and convenient but im tired of plot so enjoy u gays. stick with it promise theres a gr8 cliffhanger xox

Hoseok had never worn formalwear before.

Constricting fabric pulled tight against his ribs like a cage holding a bird unable to fly.  Black velvet with blue frills darker than the sky at midnight encased his wrists and neck with an elegance he had never possessed.. There were no stars or jewels glittering across the fabric, however, instead the inky velvet contrasted his skin like marble against soot, with the golden of his crest nestled neatly against the night sky.

"Simple. Elegant. A masterpiece of seduction," Minhyuk mumbled to himself as he fussed around Hoseok’s collar with expert hands already gloved in silk. "You already have a beautiful face, but with it hidden - you are irresistible.”

The mask was the final touch. Accented with the same diamonds of Minhyuk’s dress, the onyx velvet stretched smoothly across his eyes. It was merely enough to conceal his identity and yet incite dangerous curiosity all the same.

A look in Minhyuk’s vanity mirror revealed a man Hoseok did not recognise. Not only was his commonfolk skin paler than when he had arrived at the castle, not only did his shoulders fill out the black velvet and eyes pierce through his mask with an intensity even Hoseok could not describe, but a startlingly new persona simmered beneath the man he knew as himself.

For his hair was no longer the mottled mousy brown of commonfolk.

It was the shocking black of Royalty.

The process had been distressing to say the least. Minhyuk had not been gentle in scrubbing the bitty paste of ground coal, walnut and Galgenal oil into his hair and even less so when pouring shockingly cold bowls of water as he massaged his scalp.

“Doesn’t the cold bother you?” Hoseok had gasped, gripping the basin so hard it threatened to crumble under his hands.

“I do not feel much in my hands anymore,” Minhyuk had giggled, pressing frozen fingers into the bottom of his hair to remove the globs of sulphur dye. “Besides. Cold does not bother the Ice Prince.”

Now his hair echoed the bottomless pits of oil or tartar the blacksmiths kept in woven baskets of oak wood. It shone like sombre night beneath the firelight and reflected every shadow in an illustration of eerie darkness.

Hoseok did not look like commonfolk.

He looked  _ Royal. _

A smile twisted at his dry lips, and his heart skittered like a spooked horse.

“Here,” Minhyuk said and reached around to pin something to his chest. With a frown Hoseok realised the Prince had removed his own stallion Crest only to replace it with one of a cross and a running altar. “The final touch. For this night and this night only, your name is Dae Sungwoon. Second son of the prominently religious family of the Outlier state Damaiska. Profession? You are to be a Preacher, but you also work with taxes and finance and manage land. A rich man with heavy influence in the empty states between Highland and Middleground on the coast of the Junen cliffs. People know your name - but not your face.”

“Where did you get this?” Hoseok stared at the expensive crest with something close to reverence. It should have disgusted him, putting on such heavy gold burned with emeralds and rubies, but it just served to straighten his posture and clamp down on his lacklustre tongue.

“I am close with a man in the court who deals in fake Crests. It is incredibly fraudulent and could cost us both our life,” Minhyuk said. It did not seem as if this phased him - in fact, the excited sparkle in his eye simply propelled Hoseok to laughter. “But for tonight, none of that matters. I am Dae Minji, your beloved wife of fourteen years. Our father married us at twelve to secure relations between the two leading noble families of Damaiska. We are civil, and hope to expect a child soon.”

Was there any member of the court, extended family, nobles or prominent families Minhyuk did not know of? He supposed years of acting as a shadow of the spoilt Prince meant he could build knowledge of the playing court around him.

Minhyuk glittered in the firelight with each tender movement, and Hoseok would be a fool to not admire his beauty.

The dress he wore, while wonderful lain on silk sheets, could only be appreciated in its full glory when worn. The material was the softest, gentlest shade of blue, the colour of early winter mornings or the edges of a newborn's eyes. It’s waist, corset, sleeves were all embroidered with diamonds like that of window frost and it’s immaculate skirt extended as billowing hems of multiple fabric that layered like late night snow.

The bodice was fit with iron rods that created the illusion of curves around a slim frame. A high neckline and frilled collar bunched around his neck complimented long sleeves that met lace silk gloves of a darker blue like the edges of a wave at shore.

The wig he wore was of dark midnight, spiralling in free curls down his back and held by a few silver pins. His mask was a dark blue that compliments Hoseok’s tunic and yet there was one key difference - lace pulled tight over the seeing-holes meant his eye colour was impossible to discern.

Minhyuk did not look like himself. He looked like a Princess. He looked like a woman who could move a grown man to tears.

“My Lady,” Hoseok called, grin on his face and breath caught in his throat. The Northern Prince paused in his act of smoothing down his dress and looked up with a start.

“Yes, My Lord?” he smiled.

“Would you be so kind as to accompany me to the ball of this evening?”

“That is no way to address a Lady, my Lord, especially when we are already late for the occasion,” Minhyuk teased but slipped a gloved hand into his open palm all the same. The silk was smooth and held unsaid comforts within the woven threads. “But yes. It would be my pleasure.”

Hoseok squeezed his hand and said, "It is important for us to be late, Lady Minji. It makes for a dramatic entrance.”

“You commonfolk are all the same,” murmured Minhyuk as he guided him out of his quarters, although the word was fond and his pale body felt warm in Hoseok’s grasp.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

Like diamonds set in Highland woodwork, patterned with thick brushstrokes of paint made by crushed Hyacinth and varnished with thick oil warmed by a mountainside forge, Hoseok felt like a glittering jewell while he walked through the quiet corridors. No sound reached them, their gentle, slow footsteps digging fingernails into Hoseok’s nerves.

Could he do this? Infiltrate a ball? What even happened at balls - besides the egotistical gloating of wealth and sharp eyes of potential political matches shooting across the room?

Hoseok was far out of his depth. He felt it like the salty banks of the Hangwon river had engulfed him mere minutes ago, the soft currents pulling his empty body under until sunlight seemed a thousand moons away.

A wave of sound washed over him. Warbling lyre music drifting above the soft babble of voices - a talented mix of life traditional folk and elegant aristocratic melody. 

Hoseok hesitated.

Minhyuk did not.

The stable boy held back a gasp as he rounded the corner, finding himself on an arched balcony looking over the whole ordeal.

The ballroom was almost as large as the throne room and fashioned after heaven itself.

From the white ceiling hung great undulating flags of white trimmed with green. Across the balcony wove clean silks of celebration embroidered with the Thistle Crest. A grand double staircase of gold fell from each gallery and into the swarming crowd below, adorned in bouquets of flowers that spilt rich hues of petals onto the floor and filled the glowing hall with the scent of rose and rare Eodunn Orchids..

The floor was a flurry of billowing gowns and silk gloves and tunics buttoned with ivory and bone. It was strange, somewhat, to see them weave amongst one another with goblets or arms in their hand while their faces were concealed by velvet and jewels. To Hoseok it only served to amplify his nerves especially when they turned to face them stood like Kings above the occasion. 

“Do not fret, My Lord,” Minhyuk murmured in a voice unlike his own. A smile was painted on his face beneath the lace of his mask and he raised an elegant hand to greet those far below him. “These men and women do not know who you are.”

“Are you not scared?” Hoseok hissed back, gripping tighter to the other man while he led him down the golden steps. Many more turned to stare at their late entrance.

“I am absolutely terrified,” Minhyuk whispered.

A beat passed.

Music rolled like fog across the floor. People talked and gloated and shot lion-like glances at them from self-made stone perches. Each single thread of fabric or gleaming ruby fell slowly through the thick air - as if caught in a trance caused by the murmur of words collecting above so many.

And Hoseok laughed. 

He laughed because, to him, the entire show was so absurd. The diamonds, the pearls hanging on the delicate collarbones of exposed shoulders, the burning eyes staring at him from under every mask.

This was what the Kingdoms tax was paying for.

But for once, Hoseok did not care.

There was no reason for him to care. His family had money for he made it every day. There was no worry of them going hungry. There was no need for him to hate luxury when he had it all.

For once, Hoseok stood in front of excessive opulence, and he let his heart swell at its beauty.

And so Hoseok laughed. Minhyuk turned to look at him in surprise shown just barely beneath his aureate mask.

The entire room looked at Hoseok, in his midnight suit and jewelled mask and raven hair and they did not know he was commonfolk. They looked at Minhyuk, in his beautiful bodice of blue and frosty white that floated as a dreamy cloud around him, and they did not know he was a Northern man.

“We made it,” he breathed. Slowly, like the trickle of water from a fresh spring leaf, the Counts and Countesses and Lords and Ladies all turned back from their late entrance to engage in polite chatter once more. “Now what?”

“Now, we have fun,” Minhyuk’s mischievous grin was evident even under his mask and when a solemn servant skirted past holding a silver platter of goblets he nimbly snatched two of the sweet-smelling cups and held one out to Hoseok. “Here. Drink.”

The stable boy laughed and took a small sip. It was far too syrupy for his tastes, thick and honeyed like oil, but a tang chased it down his throat and warmed his nervous throat.

The Northern Prince ran a dulcet hand up his arm and fiddled with his collar before leaning in to whisper. Perfume billowed about his frame.

“Stand straight. Hold it with only three fingers.”

Hoseok did as he was told with lips pursed in guilt. Had anybody noticed his slip up? He did not know how to act Royal despite looking the part.

Hoseok jumped when something brushed his leg. The rose wine dripped down the side of the golden goblet, and Minhyuk hissed under his breath while he spun and took his arm.

In front of Hoseok stood a Lady.

Her face was only half concealed by a mask of lavender silk. From her long charcoal hair wove strands of the same colour in ringlets to her breast, and her corset emphasised a tight waist (far too tight to breathe in, impossible to remove with ease) before billowing into fabrics of salmon and delicate fuschia.

The Crest on her chest was a gaudy collection of rubies embedded into an eagles golden wings.

“My Lord,” she said, her curtsy brushing the ground in its perfection.

Minhyuk squeezed his arm.

“Oh, uh- My Lady,” Hoseok replied, and he sunk into a bow at the waist. Before he rose, Hoseok untangled one of her hands to press a kiss to the plush fabric of her glove. It seemed the right thing to do.

The woman giggled. Her teeth were shockingly white beneath her red lips, and the jewels strung along her shoulders seemed as if they would break. “I am Lia Song. My father is Lianon Song, of the Eagle house of Middleground. May you tell me your name? Your entrance was.. spectacular.”

“I am Dae Sungwoon, but a beautiful Lady such as yourself can call me  _ whatever _ you wish,” Hoseok said with what he considered an elegant flourish of his hand. Lia was, objectively, rather beautiful even with her mask concealing the long eyelashes that fluttered around grey eyes.

“Less dramatic, you fool. Act  _ natural. _ ” Minhyuk hissed, lips brushing his ear.

Hoseok nodded and pulled his posture taught. “Would you be so kind as to dance with me. Lia- I mean, My Lady?”

“I am afraid my husband might object,” Lia laughed. For a moment her eyes flickered to a staunch, rounded man engaging in a serious conversation by the banister before her coy posture turned back to him.

“And your wife might object too.”

Hoseok jumped when Minhyuk pushed himself into their conversation with a voice to different. It was sugary, sweet and high-pitched, dripping with saccharin tones and only stained with subtle hints of his usual accent.

For the first time, Lia’s gaze turned to Minhyuk and she sunk into a short curtsy. “I apologise, Lady Dae. I meant no disrespect.”

“Do not be sorry. Us women can hardly be responsible for our men's actions.”

Lia laughed. It was a tinkling sound that carried with her even when she spun away into the crowd.

Hoseok attempted to not be obvious while he watched her walk away.

Minhyuk hit him on the shoulder.

“What?” Hoseok turned to face him.

“You are absolutely disgusting!” Minhyuk hissed. He was looking around as if he did not wish anybody to hear. “There is not a girl in this Kingdom that would not fall for your charms!”

Hoseok grinned. He pulled away from the Northern Prince, only to lower himself into a bow and bring his slim gloved hand up to kiss. “Does that extend to you, My Lady?”

“I am never giving you wine again,” Minhyuk said, clearly scandalized, before he straightened up and wrestled Hoseok’s arm back into position. “Walk with me. And try not to act like you have never seen a woman before.”

The stable boy fell into step beside the Prince in his beautiful ball gown. People seemed to part for them and the stone floor echoed their footsteps beneath the drifting, dreamlike lyre music.

While they wandered Hoseok found himself nodding at those who offered small bows. His chest seemed to puff with the egoistic air he inhaled every acknowledgement of respect that came his way. Never in his life had he been treated so reverently. He quite enjoyed the sick knowledge that he was an intruder. They would never know they were bowing to a brown-haired commonfolk who worked shovelling hay from dawn to dusk.

Lyre music caught around his throat and coloured his eyes a hue other than the mud that stuck to his boots. The opulence seeped into the stableboys’ blood running under sun-stained skin, inflating his chest as he breathed riches, twisting his lips into a wry smile that held himself among the heavens. These were the richest men. The most influential women. The past, present and future of Middleground, and Hoseok was  _ amongst _ them.

Minhyuk kept a running commentary throughout, gaze withering beneath his concealment. “That is Eun Kibam. One of the King’s noted advisors - astute politically but known for advocating for further war with the Southerners on most occasions. Next to him - in the white - is Jung Sonun, and behind him you can see the Illianan family and their Eastern daughter-”

They both pulled to a halt when Minhyuk’s presence caught the attention of a shrewd, grey-haired couple, watching intently from the gallery of the hall.

“Nod,” Minhyuk whipsered. Hoseok did as he was told.

The old Courtier and his Lady narrowed their eyes and returned the gesture.

“Who was that?” Hoseok shot back while Minhyuk tugged him away with some urgency.

“Lord and Lady Uraisu. One of the oldest families of Middleground’s inner circle. They even kept their name of the old tongue - oh,  _ narmourh. _ ” Minhyuk jerked to a sudden stop.

At first Hoseok did not see a problem with the man approaching him. To the commoner, he was just another shadow of expensive silks and gemstones but then Minhyuk’s slip into common tongue made him look twice.

It was a Southerner.

Old. Wrinkled, prudent face withered by sun exposure, black lines crawling up his neck and marring his lips in what seemed to be echoes of teeth. Out of place in a Middleground tunic of deep maroon, the man approached with a clear objective painted on his indifferent face.

“Han Oisen,” Minhyuk whispered. His hand clutched Hoseok in fear. “Advisor to the Sun Prince and the King before him. His closest companion. He encouraged the start of the Five Year War, and- and does not approve of Jisoo’s marriage into Middleground.”

The Northern Prince barely had time to inform him of the sly man’s background before he seemed upon them. Standing too close for comfort, smile gaudy and carefree.

He did not wear a mask. 

“Lord Oisen,” Hoseok swallowed and bent stiffly at the waist. Maybe if he spoke first, the encounter would be over far sooner. “It’s- It is a pleasure to meet you.”

The man laughed. It was a terrible sound - far too deep, like the rumble of soldiers footsteps on hardened ground - and touched him lightly upon the arm in a gesture more intimidating than amicable. “No need for formalities, friend. What is your family?”

Dear Gods. Hoseok hated the Southerners and their informality more than he hated the Royals.

He also hated the man who had caused the war which killed his father.

“Dae, Dae Sungwoon, of the Outlier villages. We pledge loyalties to Middleground, however,” The commoner spoke through grit teeth. “And this is my beautiful wife Minji.”

“Beautiful indeed.”

A voice smooth and slippery in texture washed over the pair from behind.

Hoseok stiffened and Minhyuk’s gloved hand clutched tighter than ever before. 

Hoseok knew that voice. He had heard it echo above a silent throne room when the tension threatened to choke all those breathing. He had heard its arrogance worm it’s way into the King’s heart while devoid of all true emotion.

Prince Chae.

The willowy Royal stepped into view with a smile on his handsome face. Minhyuk visibly recoiled and his nails dug painful grooves into Hoseok’s arm while they both sunk into a bow and curtsy.

Prince Chae also did not wear a mask.

“Your Highness,” Minhyuk said, voice taught like the strings of an ancient harp and accent colouring his words in fear.

The Fire Prince’s suit was of a different, softer cut than Prince Im’s or Kihyun’s, with their sharp collars replaced by flowery ends of muted orange complemented by feminine red lacework. The belt that wove around his slim waist was made of snakeskin and held the floaty overthrow of flame silk to his willowy frame. Not many of his tattoos were visible although what could be seen was equally unsettling as it was awe-inspiring. A heavy black line inked from his forehead, down his nose, across his lips and disappearing beneath his collar, the spokes pulling from his eyes across his cheekbones like downturned eyelashes, the flats of his palms holding the eight-spoked sun and the backs of his fingers dotted with stars.

Hoseok wondered if the tattoos had a meaning. Had he killed for the six lines on his face? Had he burnt cities to the ground for the suns on his palm?

“My Lord. My Lady,” he nodded in greeting. Hoseok watched with wide eyes while he wound a hand around his advisor's waist and rose his sweet-smelling goblet in unrestrained greeting. “I suppose that is your title?”

Prince Chae’s voice was tangy with the accent of Southerners. It slipped over words smoothly, and even Hoseok had a hard time holding onto the meaning as if trying to contain a wet fish in his hands. 

“It is,” Hoseok said. Flat. Unfeeling. Apprehension bubbled beneath his skin and caution echoed in his posture. 

“I apologise for my asking. Where I come from, titles are.. Different, no?”

“No, I do not know.”

Han Oisen turned to look at him, incredulous. Minhyuk kicked his ankle in panicked warning.

For a moment the tall Prince seemed to stare at him with a face blank like unstained parchment. Then he burst into a peal of hearty laughter while his golden eyes brimmed with excitement.

“Oh, a joke! From a man of Middleground!” he exclaimed, looking at Hoseok as if he had seen his Gods for the first time. “Forgive me, but I was beginning to think you were all - how should I say?”

Hoseok raised an eyebrow but said not one word. 

Prince Chae was not perturbed.

“Uptight!” he laughed suddenly and pat Hoseok on the arm. The commoner sucked in a tense breath and jerked away. How dare the son of a murderer touch him so casually? “Uptight - that is the word, yes? I am sorry for intruding on this conversation. I am afraid I saw my good advisor talking to those which made the dramatic late entrance and could not resist. We Southerners value such… obvious displays, no?”

“We did not intend to be late, your Majesty,” Minhyuk said quietly. Hyungwon’s burning eyes flickered to face him. “It was an unfortunate product of terrible time management. We wished to look our best.”

The Fire Prince smiled. It was breathless, awed, fire in his gaze simmering with overwhelming longing.

Hoseok did not like it one bit. Almost immediately his protectiveness ensured, and he held Minhyuk’s arm just a little tighter.

“Well, I thank Fire that you did just that,” Hyungwon said. “Even with your mask, you look as beautiful as the water which douses flame.”

It was then that Hoseok decided Minhyuk was the best actor he had ever seen. Not once did he flinch in the presence of the man that had advised the destruction of his entire people nor did he procure any resistance upon coming face to face with his son.

A quick glance at the man in disguise showed the tips of his ears poking from his wig were the deepest shade of pink Hoseok had ever seen.

Hoseok opened his mouth to say something - anything that would untangle the both of them from the uncomfortable golden eyes of the Southerners, an excuse to disappear back into the crowd and never face the unnerving fire-breathers again.

And yet, as it seemed to grow more apparent the older the commoner got, the Giants were never on Hoseok’s side, and he turned in confusion when a sudden hush fell upon the room. The music trickled to a stop and the atmosphere fell like a waterfall onto a hundred pairs of discontented shoulders.

Two slim figures stood at the peak of the staircase. They towered above the rest of them in a display of power; one willowy, tall and elegant and the other shorter with an immature frame.

The future King and Queen of Middleground. The betrothed. The engaged. The single couple that held the entire livelihood of two nations in the palm of their unblemished hands.

A golden halo encompassed them as the drag of violin drifted along the ballroom floor. 

Prince Im wore white with a coin-coloured sash, the sharp thorns of his Royal crest glinting in the firelight. A glimmering cape of sheer gold hung about his slim frame. The Sun Princess stood next to him glowing with a hundred summer days as if each golden sunrise had embedded itself underneath her skin. She had adorned a tighter hem, however, one cut like the embroidery of Middleground around her breast and waist. It dampened the usual flow of her long figure with a collar sharp and cutting. It was an interesting contrast - Changkyun’s Southern-made cape and Jisoo’s harsh hemline, but somehow, it worked. The perfect compromise of two warring nations welcoming each other’s tradition.

Jisoo’s waiting ladies hovered behind her in a harem of vaguely concealed guardsmanship. Maskless and silent, they followed her as they began their descent ink patterning pretty sun-stained faces and belts made of snakeskin and rope.

The couple descended as one. Silence hung heavy and swollen in the air, a hundred pairs of eyes fixed like daggers on the pair. Throbbing awe and suspicion and scrutiny echoed in every dazzling, shrewd face.

They bowed.

So did the company. Hoseok followed clumsily as Minhyuk sunk into a curtsy beside him, the blue of his gown billowing like river water around his frame.

“Thank you, all, for such a warm welcome.” Jisoo’s voice was a beautiful wave of heat that placated the shuffling crowd. For a moment her white teeth glittered in the firelight as she pat her partner's arm - in amusement, it seemed, at some inside joke - before turning to give a wave to the company. “Please. Do not let us keep you. Let us dance on this glorious day.”

They bowed once again - Jisoo fluid and captivating, Prince Im stiff, with his face twisted in displeasure.

Spoilt brat.

Hyungwon’s entertained voice slammed Hoseok back to reality after the suspended air had collapsed. “My sister is a wonderful actress, no? I suppose I should greet his Highness Prince Im - but he is such a child, I do not know if he would like to see my handsome face.” 

Han Oisen shot his Prince an exasperated stare. “My Grace, it is unwise to say such things-”

“Hush, Oisen. Let me have some fun.” Prince Chae’s mischievous gaze turned to face the tense commoner once again. “Tell me, Lord Dae. Between us men, since you seem one of such freedom. Would you be so objecting if I asked to take your wife for a dance?”

Hoseok’s gaze hardened. “I think you shall find Minji may speak for herself, your Highness. She is very independent.”

“If you insist,” Hyungwon chuckled. He handed his goblet to his silent, shrewd advisor, ran a hand through his golden hair, then gently bent down to take Minhyuk’s gloved hand in his own and press the lightest of kisses to the fabric.

Hoseok was so close he could hear Minhyuk’s soft exhale.

“Lady Dae?” The Prince said, suddenly serious. A shadow cast itself over his handsome face and settled into the pillowy line of his lips, words slippery and low like satin felt at the end of dusk. “May you join me in dance?”

A beat passed.

Hoseok wondered what his friend was thinking beneath his stiff demeanour and shy voice. The man was reserved usually, but Hoseok’s mind flashed his defiance of rejecting political friendship when faced with the Fire Prince for the first time.

How he had stood in front of hundreds of people from a foreign land and said no.

But, to Hoseok’s surprise, Minhyuk nodded. The lace collar of his dress bobbed as he swallowed thickly.

“Of course, your Majesty,” he said softly, and took Hyungwon’s outstretched hand.

Hoseok watched while Prince Chae led Minhyuk into the crowd, his red silks a direct contrast to the blue folds of the Northern Prince in disguise, and the stable boy would be a fool to miss how he squeezed Hoseok’s arm twice before leaving.

Hoseok stood there dumbfounded. He did not know what to think.

The Fire Prince had been strangely charming. Unlike the Middleground Royals, he seemed almost friendlike, as if Hoseok could propose a game of Bongsang and he would play good-naturedly and without hesitation. 

Even so, worry gnawed at his insides like a horse at stale hay while he caught glimpses of the tall man leading his friend away. What if he saw through his disguise? What if Minhyuk was terrified? What if Hoseok was meant to do something, anything, object to his questions instead of passing it to the shy Northerner and backing him into an inescapable corner?

Slowly, the commoner became aware that his thoughts were not the only sound attempting to garner his attention.   
  


Han Oisen was speaking beside him.

To him. Directly addressing the disguised commoner in his sly words too big for his putrid mouth.

“Hmm?” Hoseok interrupted.

Oisen’s lips pressed into a tight line. “I was saying. Your finances in the South of your families influence have been going well, I hear? I took some time to look into the attendees of this occasion, as I am foreign it is only polite.” The elderly man cocked his head to the side. “It is strange. I did not see you on the list, and yet you are here, despite no correspondence.”

Uneasiness stirred deep in Hoseok’s gut.

“My family wanted- uh, wished to send a representative to congratulate the Prince and his marriage,” he said, unnerved. “It'd be rude not to, right?”

“I suppose,” Han Oisen smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “Though in Middleground customs it may be ruder to appear uninvited. Perhaps even listed as a crime”

Hoseok bristled. The echoes of Minhyuk’s reprimanding voice attempted to halt his loose tongue but it was too late.

“I’m sorry if my presence offends you, Lord Oisen, but I believe your list of wrongdoings is much greater than mine.”

A beat passed.

Oisen’s beady, fiery eyes narrowed and his smile grew stiff.

Then, he cocked his head to the side and focussed on a spot just above Hoseok’s eyes.

“Odd.” he said, almost to himself. “I had always been told Dae Sungwoon had grey hair, not black.”

Silence.

Oisen knew.

Han Oisen knew Hoseok was not who he said he was.

Hoseok opened his mouth to say something, anything, calculated words that would send the Southern Advisor to take shelter back with his own people.

But then he was gone. As if he no longer existed. Disappearing into the crowd and leaving Hoseok alone with alarming thoughts and the distinct notion of danger.

Just as he thought he had escaped the southerners, however, Hoseok turned and ran straight into the Fire Prince himself.

The Stable boy was beginning to get a little tired of such encounters. Could he not avoid the most powerful people to exist? Why were they drawn to him like moths to a flame, when he was the poorest amongst them all?

“I am sorry, your Highness,” he said, distracted, unable to think past the knowing smile of Oisen that burnt fear into his mind. “Did you enjoy your dance with my wife? Where is he- sorry, she now?”

Hyungwon laughed. He took two polished goblets from a passing servant and offered one to Hoseok. “The Lady is rather.. masculine in voice, no? Forgive me if I say it is rather attractive. You are both a beautiful pair,”

Hoseok ignored the offer of the sickly wine. “Do you use flattery often, Prince Chae?”

“Only if it gets me what I want,” The Fire Prince smiled. Despite the fire of his eyes, the expression seemed kind, friendly, entertained. “ My father is a man who would rather break a skull with his bare hands than compliment a man on his looks. I find the Court Politics of Middleground to be far more nuanced. Flattery works better than ferocity when the people you converse with would rather send peasants to war than fight themselves, hmm?”

Hoseok’s skin prickled uncomfortably. Suddenly, the illusion broke, leaving Hoseok stiff and unspeaking.

It was meant to be a joke.

But to Hoseok, it carried no single shard of humour. It was a dark statement, one of ignorance and arrogance.

Was he making a dig at the Middleground Royals, for sending commonfolk to fight? Either way, it was Hoseok who had suffered. Who had known the true consequences of the Royal’s petty war.

Hoseok was glad for the flash of elegant blue and crystal diamonds for the conversation had taken a dark turn. 

“Come,” Minhyuk said upon his appearance, tugging on his arm after glancing at the Sun Prince. “Let us celebrate elsewhere,”

Once again, Hyungwon’s face settled into a smile of complete awe. “It was a pleasure to dance with you, Lady Dae.”

“And you, your Highness,” Minhyuk said politely, before they stole away.

“What’s wrong?” Hoseok whispered once out of earshot. “Did he hurt you? Did he say anything wrong?”

“No,” Minhyuk breathed. The small sliver of pale skin available at his jaw was a bright pink.

Minhyuk let out a harsh breath and tightened his grip on Hoseok’s arm. Even with his silk gloves, such an action procured a pained exhale from the commoner.

"I hate him.” Minhyuk was seething. “I hate that bastard firebreather. No amount of charm will make me forget my people. How dare he take such a stance - dance with those he thinks are beautiful when his father massacred the most beautiful people of all- " The disguised man cut himself off quickly and gave a mocking hiss. “Oh,  _ narmourh _ , not again. Be quiet, commoner. Do not say a word.”

Hoseok looked up to find what his friend had seen.

The Prince.

Walking straight towards them. Dressed in gold and white lace, extravagance more opulent than any other man in the room. It was as if he were riches personified, mask delicate and jewelled moulded to his face and allowing only his pink lips and pale cheeks to show beneath.

On his arm was the Sun Princess, dressed in those great veils of red and orange and heavy gems that settled just between her breasts, sharp cut of her hem tight against her skin.

She looked just like her brother - in that, she was beautiful, even more so at such a close distance.

“Your Highness,” Minhyuk greeted with a low bow. Fear bit away at Hoseok’s stomach while he copied clumsily, as did anger at the arrogant tilt of the Prince’s head.

Prince Im nodded.

“Welcome, Lord and Lady Dae,” he said. His velvet voice caught on each syllable and his gaze did not waver from Hoseok’s hostile stare. “I was not aware you were invited nor residing in the castle. However, it is still a pleasure to have you here.”

“We wished to show our support for such an advantageous marriage,” Minhyuk said, floating into a curtsy before gesturing to Hoseok. His voice was clearly strained from attempting to make it unrecognisable. Why did they not just scurry away? He knew how close the two men were. “I am sorry my husband cannot speak much. This Eastern land has given him an ailment, and to talk hurts his throat greatly.”

Minhyuk’s accent was almost completely native. Occasionally he slipped on a few words - those with foreign syllables or sharp sounds - and each time his hands tightened on Hoseok’s arm in fear of discovery. It was lucky, therefore, that the Prince was far too focused boring vehement holes into Hoseok’s gaze than doing much else.

Hoseok hoped beyond everything that the shadow of his mask was enough to hide the muddy brown of his eyes.

“I saw him talking just a moment ago,” Prince Im said, accusatory.

“He was detailing his condition, but unfortunately it worsened in the time it took us to walk. It is dreadful, really,” Minhyuk lamented dramatically. Jisoo seemed to listen to him speak with vague, detached interest, but the Prince did not once look at him. “Speaking of which, your Highness, Princess. We would like to congratulate you on your engagement. We support you as a faction and our family stands with you both.”

“Thank you, My Lady,” Jisoo nodded slowly.

There was boredom in her voice, and her hand only held lightly onto Changkyun’s slim arm. All pretence of her welcoming entrance had trickled into nothing more than a continued apathy.

Hoseok was not listening to their polite conversation. He had long tuned out the tense words, and instead his brow had drawn together watching the Prince stare so intently at him. The forest of his eyes flickered under his golden mask and the delicate part of his lips was painted a darker pink for the occasion.

Hoseok raised an eyebrow.

Prince Im tilted his head. His glare flickered to his shoulders, then to his crest, then back to his masked face.

Hoseok smiled. Ever so slightly, a slight sarcastic quirk of his lips just below the edges of his velvet cover, and he watched in shock as a soft flush crept up the Prince’s neck and he averted his eyes.

The Prince’s head whipped around to stare at Minhyuk when he spoke again.

“Say that again,” he said, suddenly dark with suspicion. “I was not aware you had an accent. It sounded briefly familiar,”

“Oh, that? I- well, you-”

“It is nothing, your Highness,” Hoseok said quickly. “My wife came down with an ailment such as mine two moons ago. She is still recovering, but it affects her tongue and throat still.”

Changkyun’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you could not speak.”

“It seems I have been miraculously cured in your presence, My Prince.”

Prince Im stared at him.

Hoseok stared back. Defiant. Unyielding. 

He would not bow to such a child. He would not bend his back to breaking point to keep him satisfied.

Something burned between them, just out of reach, in the empty air of sizzling tension that ran down Hoseok’s spine and almost seemed to fuel his loose tongue.

Princess Jisoo had caught on to such an exchange. Her gaze flickered between the two with amusement, and her tongue wet her lips like a snake who had just found it’s prey.

Before an altercation could ensue, Minhyuk took a shaky breath and tugged on Hoseok’s arm. "We must be off. My husband is feeling ill once again."

And with that they left the two most powerful people in the room alone with an exit that could only be described as rude. Scurrying away like a mouse from a vulture, heart in their mouths and pulse quickened by fear.

“We’re glad you look absolutely gorgeous tonight, or Changkyun would have named you in a heartbeat,” Minhyuk said as the mass of ballgowns and tunics swallowed them into oblivion.

“I thought he was staring at me because he recognised me.”

“You know nothing of the Prince, Lee Hoseok,” Minhyuk sighed, spinning around to face him. Around them, the harping sound of the lyre drifted above the quiet conversation of nobles. It grew louder with each passing moment, twisting itself around the blooming orchids and whisking up the saccharine smell of wine. “Remember what I taught you about dance?”

“Dance? You only showed me a single step-”

“And that is enough to be an apathetic Lord who did not listen for most of his youth,” Minhyuk said. The ballroom began to ebb and flow into a semi-pattern of life. Men took women by their hands and pulled them to the centre, while others drifted to the sidelines to observe, not participate.

Why wasn’t Minhyuk doing that? Why did he have to dance?

The commonfolk stumbled, distracted, and caught the other man by his jewelled bodice to stop his fall. The Northern Prince laughed his windswept laugh and wound his gloved hands around broad shoulders.

“You make a woman’s heart flutter, My Lord,” Minhyuk said, teasing.

“And I can barely breathe in the presence of your beauty.” Hoseok grinned.

The worry fled from his limbs like the blessed water of an alter. Indulging in such an absurd thing as  _ dancing _ , well. Hoseok just could not resist breaking the rules one more time. So what if Han Oisen knew who he was? He would never talk to the loathsome man again.   
  


And so, he danced, holding the Northern Prince to his chest in calloused, stable boy hands.

To begin with Hoseok was clunky. Inelegant. Hampered by heavy feet and confusion over steps that moved offbeat. Minhyuk was patient guiding him with simple counting and gentle arms although occasionally the Northern Prince let out a tender giggle at Hoseok’s lumbering frame.

“I am beginning to think this was a terrible idea,” he laughed when Hoseok tripped over his own feet and almost flew into a passing Courtier.

“It was always a terrible idea,” Hoseok grumbled. The commoner was used to being good at things - having to focus with all his mind on simple foot placements was frustrating. “I ain’t wanna talk like this forever. Can’t stand it. What does ‘correspondence’ even mean, Min?”

Minhyuk hissed at his language while Hoseok spun him. “It means communication. Besides, you are improving, slowly. But now it is time to pass me off.”

“TIme to what?”

“Pass me off. You must dance with other Ladies. Try not to embarrass me, I am your wife after all.”

It seemed it was time for such things, as the other guests had whipped themselves into an elegant frenzy of ball gowns while they traded partners in a complex pattern of dance everybody knew but him.

“Ready?” Minhyuk said.

“ _ Ready? _ Wait, no, Minhyuk, I can’t-” 

But it was too late.

Minhyuk had spun away and another lady was in his arms.

A lady he did not know.

Clearly panicked, Hoseok caught Minhyuk’s gaze while he was whisked away by some aristocrat in green. He was laughing, flushed, and Hoseok did not think he had ever had more fun.

It seemed a challenge, a competition. The final step of assimilation, of belonging amongst such people.

Hoseok loved to win.

He spun and he spun and he laughed and he danced. The lady who he held seemed at first surprised by his enthusiasm and confused by his blundering steps but it was not long before the music hit a crescendo once more and she spun into the arms of another man. The people he danced with were all different - flashes of fuchsia, of emerald, of ruby and diamond and gold. The music sped up with each turn. Quick like lightning, loud like thunder. A storm of energy that engulfed the fear in Hoseok’s chest.

When he spun a small woman with midnight hair and a navy dress, his eyes caught sight of a heavy stare.

Prince Im was watching him.

From where he held a lady at arms length while he played out such complex steps. Watching him with something hidden behind his hazel eyes from a whole ballroom away.

And yet, Hoseok continued to dance.

Heads spinning, back straight while their gazes bore into each other. Hoseok was laughing and Changkyun seemed inherently suspicious by such an outburst.

To the stable boy it seemed absurd. Him dancing amongst the richest people of the land with the Prince watching his every move.

Hoseok turned once more with empty arms as the lady spun away.

His chest hit a smaller man. He stumbled forward, surprised, and gripped at his waist to bring them flush together.

The Prince.

Neither of them moved.

It seemed time stopped, when Hoseok held Prince Im and their bodies pressed flush in gold and black. Changkyun’s lips were parted and a strange caution hovered between his gaze. There was an odd determination in his eyes, but also a fear.

A red blush painted his cheeks under his golden mask.

The silence spoke a thousand words. Hoseok felt an entirely new persona overwhelm him, dressed in Royal clothes, a fraudulent Crest on his lapel and his hair dark as Royal, when his hands slipped to hold the Prince’s waist properly and he straightened to the sound of the music.

All the tension that had built between their strange stares exploded as they began to dance. At first slow, their feet stepped in time, quicker and quicker. Hoseok could barely remember the correct dance from Minhyuk’s quick teaching alone in his room, but it was enough and - to the commoner's surprise - Changkyun led better than Minhyuk. His steps were quick and fluid, and yet easy to follow, motioning with his body as each movement concluded.

If the Prince noticed his faltering steps and blundering moves, he chose not to mention it.

“I know you are not Dae Sungwoon,” Prince Im said.

Hoseok’s stomach dropped. Clunky feet stumbled beneath him, and the masked Prince wrestled him back into position.

"I do not know what you are talking about." Hoseok bluffed.

Changkyun scoffed. "I can recognise Minhyuk from his very stance. I have known that man since I was thirteen.”

“It- It’s not his fault-”

“I do not care whose fault it is. I just wish to know who you are, stranger.”

Was there much point continuing a narrative neither of them believed in?

“Dae Sungwoon.” he breathed.

“I met that man when I came of age. He had grey hair and was smaller in stature,” Changkyun said, scathing. The crashing music could not hide the maddened tone of his voice. “The real Dae Sungwoon would never bring his wife to any gathering. He prefers preying on women far too young.”

Hoseok chose not to say anything.

The violin switched octaves. The lyre plucked itself at double speed. They were reaching a crescendo.

“Are you even a Lord?” Changkyun asked.

Hoseok shook his head. “Not quite.”

And then Changkyun spun beneath his arm. Once, twice, a surprising show of comprehension that ended with Hoseok gripping him by the back and lowering him into a slow dip. 

Changkyun pulled back. Danced on light feet for Hoseok to follow, outstretched arms hovering around such an elegant frame, a chase of cat and dog. A dance meant for strangers to act like lovers, to push and pull and laugh and cry and tease with subtle curves of their body.

Despite everything, it was never lost on Hoseok the beauty of the Prince of Middleground. He was short and slim and lacked boisterous power. Nothing a King should be, and yet, he was beautiful.

Lost in the confused trance spun like a web around his mind, Hoseok did not realise when the music stopped. He did not realise how his hands gripped white fabric until it bunched between calloused fingers, did not realise his chest rose and fell with such heavy breath while they both caught their bearings, their different silks pressed flush against one another as the room stopped it’s twirl.

“You dance well for an imposter,” Changkyun choked out. His pale cheeks were flushed.

“And you follow well for a Prince,” Hoseok stepped back quickly. His neck burned with shame - how could he have danced with such a man? He did not know how to dance - what should happen if the Prince found out who he was?

“I command you to tell me your identity,” the boy demanded.

Hoseok looked at him. The tang of bitter anger sharpened like stone against sword on his tongue.

“I do not take commands from Prince’s who never say thank you.”

Changkyun’s lips parted in surprise.

Hoseok was aware it was wrong. That he threatened not only his own livelihood but Minhyuk’s too.

He really didn't care.

Prince Im grasped his neck and pulled apart the satin bindings ties so delicately against his skin. The velvet mask tumbled to the floor with a thud.

Hoseok did not even try to catch it when it fell.

“You,” Changkyun breathed. Beneath his mask, his Royal skin grew impossibly ashen with shock and his eyes were wide with all the betrayal in the world.

”It was a pleasure to dance with you, Prince Im,” Hoseok said. “You dance better than my peasant girls.”

The entire ballroom ground to a confused halt as the Prince stumbled backwards. Some kept talking until their neighbours tapped them with nervous faces, and others grasped their silks in surprise while they watched the altercation unfold like a thousand layers of translucent silk upon the weaving instrument. Drawing together a picture that would be hung in the corridors of the cold castle for the rest of time.

Hoseok was aware people were staring at him.

Staring at him and his brown eyes and tanned skin and the smudge of coal dye on his neck and ears.

“You… you commonfolk…  _ you _ …” Changkyun was murmuring in complete outrage while he lurched backwards. The crowd around him gossipped in shock. They fanned their masked faces with laced gloves and jewelled wrists while they stared at the widening gap between the Prince and the commoner.

Then Changkyun threw down his gloves and stormed out of the hauntingly silent room. The sea of ballgowns parted for him and his footsteps echoed on the stone floor.

Hoseok took the gloves in his hands. The surrounding aristocrats stepped backwards at his movement, staring at him as if he were some strange exhibition, both a danger and a curiosity.

When the commoner rose his gaze caught Minhyuk’s eyes in the sea of strangers - his morning dress a light contrast to the deep hues of the serious nobles - and the Northern Prince gave a small gesture with a gloved hand.

_ Follow him. _

Hoseok did as he was told.

Running through the crowd to loud gasps and shocked cries, he found his way into the opulent hallways of the castle and ducked into corridors with frantic footsteps before he caught sight of the golden tunic of the Prince.

“Leave me alone, you commonfolk filth!” the boy called at the sound of footsteps. He walked faster and Hoseok hurried to keep up until they were side by side.

  
“You forgot your gloves,” Hoseok held the silk garments to him.

“Why do you insist on humiliating me?” Changkyun turned on him with tearful anger on his masked face. The commoner dropped the gloves in surprise, and for all his bravado, he thought he had finally ruined his chances. He would be sent home. He would never make another Drachen again. “Do you think your savage commonfolk games are amusing? Am I but a child to you? Why will you not leave me alone!”

Hoseok blanched. “I.. what? Why would you think that?”

Changkyun laughed, almost hysterical. “You have not stopped attempting to diminish my reputation. Intruding on Royal matters, throwing me to the ground, shaming me in front of every man who shall one day be under my command.”

Hoseok’s steps were slowing.

Surely he was no threat to the Prince’s authority? Was that how he saw it? Not as a stable boy fearful of all Royal commands, attempting to provide for his family by giving up all he’s known, but as a mischief-maker bent on making his life terrible?

Is that how it seemed to him?

“Why are you following me?” Changkyun called. His voice echoed in the empty corridor. “I shall pass into the Royals Quarters soon. Your type of people are not permitted to enter."   
  
"I am a Royal tonight, your Highness. Have you not seen my hair?"   
  
Changkyun scoffed. "No amount of coal paste can disguise the dirt of your eyes,"   
  
"No amount of posture can disguise your small frame,” Hoseok quipped.

Mistake.   
  
Changkyun gasped. His pretty face morphed from hurt to disbelief to shameless outrage. “Do not speak to me like that."   
  
"Like what, your Highness?"   
  
"Like- like you're one of us," Changkyun pointed at him almost mockingly. "You are not a Royal. You never have been, never will be. If it were up to me there would be no place for people like you in this castle,”

And with that Changyun turned on his delicate heels and began to storm away.

Faintly, Hoseok realised that he had followed Changkyun expecting something. Anything that wasn’t this arrogant persona that made him want to pull every hair from his head. A sliver of goodness, a glimpse into what the other’s saw in him.

But Hoseok had found only rottenness.   
  
"You really are a spoilt brat, aren't you?" he laughed. When he ran a hand through his hair to loosen his concealed anger, it came away blackened with the dried powder of the coal dye.   
  
Changkyun spun with a look of outrage on his face. "What did you just call me?"   
  
"A spoilt brat!" Hoseok could not stop the hilarity. Middleground’s heir was nothing but a mean spirited child. "A spoilt fucking brat who runs around this castle in his jewels and silk and has no regard for anybody outside of these walls!" 

  
"Do not use that language with me, stable boy!"   
  
"I saved your life, Changkyun!" Hoseok raised his voice.

  
"My name is not yours to speak," Changkyun sneered.   
  
"Your life was not mine to save," Hoseok laughed, bitter, and stepped forward in desperation. "And yet I saved it. I killed a man for you, Prince Im. Put a knife in his heart from a hundred lengths away and this is how you treat me?"

From this close, the stable boy could see the green of his eyes as if he had woven it himself, as if the browns and golds had been strung together by the Gods themselves, deep pools of emerald and brass and so much more than just a  _ arrogance. _

  
The Princes mouth was opening and closing and yet words refused to come. Hoseok waited, and he waited, exasperated, urging him to say something, anything to shatter the tension of their anger.   
  
And then footsteps sounded around the corner and the small Prince froze. With eyes wide in fear, he gripped Hoseok’s sleeve and dragged him into the small stone alcove set into the castle wall.   
  
Disguised, they could hear it all.   
  
"Are you that afraid of being seen with me, your highness?" Hoseok said mockingly.   
  
And then a hand came down over his mouth.   
  
Hoseok was surprised at the touch. It would not do much to quiet him should he decide to speak, but the clear contrast between them arguing and the soft-touch caught all available words in his mouth.

  
His hand was smooth and smelt of bath oils. Like lavender and velvet and the soft comfort of sleep.   
  
"Does the Prince know of his deterioration?"   
  
The voice was pebbly, weak and unfamiliar. It was accompanied by the rub of metal gauntlets that told the listener they were armed.   
  
Hoseok looked down at the Prince in confusion. Their bodies pressed flush once more in the miniscule slip between stone walls.   
  
"Not yet, I'm afraid." The second voice was leaden with a Highland dialect.  _ Kihyun _ . Why was he not at the ball? "His father's health has been in steady decline for five years, but preparations for the ball have left him bedbound and incompetent."   
  


Hoseok turned to look at Changkyun in fear but the Prince’s eyes were trained on the floor as he listened intently.   
  
"We have tried everything,” the first, weak voice lamented. “Remedies from all across the land, even bringing a Priest from the Khamsen plains to provide healing."   
  
"To no avail.”   
  
"No," The unknown man’s voice grew quieter as they passed their hiding spot. Hoseok squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to whatever God listening that they would not be caught. "It seems as if his majesty shall soon pass and his son will be crowned king."   
  
"Perhaps," said Kihyun, and then they rounded the corner and the hollow footsteps bled into the distance.   
  
For a moment Hoseok and Changkyun stood frozen together, the Prince’s hand still pressing into his lips and his eyes downcast, before he slipped away like the flowing waters of an alter and into the hallway once again.

Hoseok followed. He was silent.   
  
Changkyun removed his mask.

He did so slowly, without the grandeur of his usual actions, pulling at the ribbon in silence and slipping it away with hunched shoulders. For a moment he seemed suspended in some far away Kingdom while he looked at the golden gemstones and then his arm dropped to hang limply at his side.   
  


Hoseok’s chest ached. Somewhere, in the far recesses of his mind, he wondered how much of Prince Im's persona was a facade.

  
For, despite the arrogant words and scathing comments, the Prince only held one final emotion in his small frame while he stood alone surrounded by the hallway too big and too empty.

  
Sadness.   
  
His own step-brother had been talking of his father's death as if it were a casual dinner ceremony.

In that moment The King was not a man of more power than should be held. He was Changkyun’s father - his only living parent - and he was dying.   
  
Hoseok knew what that was like.   
  
"Thank you," Changkyun said quietly, dragging Hoseok back to reality. For a moment he looked back at his mask, and then his eyes flickered up to meet his gaze. "For saving my life. Thank you."   
  
"You’re.. You’re welcome, I guess," Hoseok breathed.   
  
There was a pause. It grew awkward, the younger boy rolling forward on the balls of his feet, posture stiff. The Prince seemed no bigger than a child in that moment.

“I am sorry I threw your mask on the floor, too,” Changkyun said.

Hoseok shrugged. “It's alright. It wasn't mine.”

Just briefly, so small it must have been imagined, the others pink lips quirked ever so slightly. Almost as if he were about to smile.   
  
"Do I really dance better than your peasant girls?" said Changkyun, refusing eye contact.   
  
Hoseook paused. 

"Yes.”   
  
"Do you, perhaps..." the Prince seemed to be draped in a sudden startling pink across the cheeks and neck. "Did you ever do anything else with these peasant ladies, besides dancing?"

Hoseok’s brow knit together. Was the Prince suggesting what he thought he was suggesting? Was that not inappropriate to discuss?   
  
"I don’t think I should-" he began, wary.   
  
"Answer me." Changkyun demanded. His blush crept down his neck and his eyes were on the floor

A beat passed.

The stable boy thought of Kangmi and her freckled skin and crescent eyes. He thought of Junia, and Eunsoo and Hanmi and Lua and moments stolen in back-rooms or loaded docks or slipways between stilted buildings with the smell of salt in the air prickling their hot skin.

"Yes," Hoseok breathed.

For a moment their gazes met, and then the Royal turned on his heel and disappeared around the corner, into the wing of Royal Residence in which Hoseok would never be allowed.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

The ominous silence of morning unsettled Hoseok deeply.

He woke with his pillow stained black and coal smudged across his tired face. The covers had mellowed the usual ache of his joints but his head throbbed with tiredness. Tongue dry and tasting of wine, expensive tunic discarded in the corner and a mask of darkness and diamonds placed on his bedside counter by his knife.

He half expected a notice of unemployment to be placed neatly on top.

As it was, an odd ghost of unease followed him through his morning routine. Every sound convinced him he was seconds from arrest. Every person to greet him was an enemy who knew what he had done the night previously. His mind was a blur of ballgowns and names and manners and fear. When Hoseok realised he drunk from his goblet with three fingers and not four that morning, he scolded himself.

But it was habit. He half expected Minhyuk to creep behind him to curse his bad etiquette.

But nobody came for him. Not that first morning in the sunlit stables amongst the smell of hay and horse. Not that evening when he stole away to his room to devour the hot food that satiated his long-abused stomach. Not while he slept alone in the pillowy bed now bowed with his weight. Not while he laboured into the evening amongst musty tack and gout with the two Noble boys scurrying off by night.

Days passed of him suspended within that unending unease. Each supper tasted less like real food at each new dawn and dusk.

Hoseok brought apple tart for Minhyuk every time.

But Minhyuk never came.   
  
At first Hoseok did not worry. The boy had a habit of disappearing for a few days and then materialising like the first frosty morning of winter in a flurry of delicate snow. His quiet laugh would drift across the mellow red and browns of Hoseok’s room and whip up a frenzy of laughter with the twinkle in his ice eyes.

It was on the third day Hoseok began to worry. Unfortunately, the worry drew his focus from production. Even Lin and Jae, with their shock of dark hair and round cherub cheeks, seemed inclined to ask him what was wrong despite their usual quiet. The stable boy had waved them off and finished his work alone that night.

Was Minhyuk alright? Had he been scolded for his participation at the ball that night? Had Prince Im forbidden him from visiting Hoseok - or worse, from even leaving his room?

A week from the ball, Hoseok returned to find an untouched parchment lying on his pillow stamped with a Royal wax seal.

It was his pay.

One Drachen.

Why was he still being paid, when he had broken so many rules? When he had sworn at Middlegrounds only heir?

When he had stolen a dance from the Prince with the beautiful eyes?

The stable was filled with the light nothingness of early morning when they finally came for him. Empty fresh air settled on his skin as he worked, wearing his usual white tunic and slacks, cleaning out a pen while the familiar sound of fidgeting horses ran under his laborious grunts and the birds chirped their songs of freedom and friendship.

“Lee Hoseok.”

Hoseok stilled. He leant his shovel against the wooden division and let out a calming breath.

When he turned, he was faced with a knight he did not know the name of.

“Yes?” he asked.

“You have been summoned to court.” The man said. His white sash glittered with gold thread and his crest was two arrows crossed in service.

The stable boy did not feel much. For what he presumed was the last time, he glanced around his golden workplace and bridle rack and trodden hay on the stone floor, then he straightened his tunic and turned back.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

The Knight seemed momentarily surprised by his willingness but then he began to lead. Through the damp servants quarters, into the primary hallways that wound around rooms nobody required or cared for.

Hoseok briefly wondered if he would get his last weeks pay before they kicked him from the castle. Would the money he had earnt be enough to keep them afloat long enough for Hoseok to find another job? Would people take him, as a castle reject, as somebody who had so obviously broken the law by impersonating a noble?

Would they do worse than that - would they imprison him? Would he ever see sunlight again?

“Wait,” Hoseok said when he came face to face with the door of the throne room. Chatter drifted from under the cracks. “Is this an actual trial? Or do they just want to punish me?”

The guard turned to look at him with confusion on his features. “What are you talking of, commoner?”

“Do I- Do I get a chance to speak or do the Royals just want to sentence me?”

“This trial is not for you,” the Knight said.

“I-what?” Hoseok’s heart jumped. “But I thought- because of the other night-”

“Worse things have occurred than a stable boy thinking he could dress up, you fool.” 

The commoner's stomach soared. This trial was not for him? He was allowed to stay?

“What happened, then? Why am I being summoned?”

The Knight looked at him from where his hand hovered on the door. His face was blank, although there was some darkness in his eyes Hoseok could not procure.

“Han Oisen is dead, commoner, and you know the accused.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehe ur welcome :)  
> !! as usual if u dont feel like commenting u can anon me on curiouscat [here](https://curiouscat.me/shinsxoh)  
> it gets darker in terms of themes after this chapter so look forward to it i guess lmao


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK. NOTES BEFORE WE GET INTO IT.
> 
> 1\. There is now a map of the KC world [here!](https://twitter.com/shinsxoh/status/1159921621504876546?s=19) It's not to scale but might help with visualising hehe
> 
> 2\. Ok! you know those TW i put at the very beginning of this story? it's come to my attention some people have skipped them. This story contains - graphic descriptions of gore and - main character death. nobody dies in this chapter ok but please be aware thats a thing thatll happen! alright! ok phew
> 
> 3\. uh. this is defo not how a court worked in medieval times ive studied them. however, it's how it works in middleground. so you cant question it. whats made up can have it's own rules ok.
> 
> uh. have fun with this one. it a bit convoluted but whatever. enjoy and try not to murder me

Despite the soaring ceiling that brushed the mighty sky, Hoseok had never felt as if his chest was compressed as much as he did stood within the crowd of nobles hampering the floor before the steps to the thrones.

Neither the King nor Queen sat upon them.

Hoseok had shuffled uneasily when the Knight had manoeuvered him to stand behind two other’s dressed from head to toe in luxury. He was out of place amongst such riches and it was obvious that the Courtiers and Lords that turned to stare at him knew of his altercation at the masquerade ball.

Silence was the only commodity underneath the detached gaze of the Royals. Framed by the dead weight tapestries and flickering bowls of fire held on baubled stone, their presence seemed both larger than life and a gaping hole, their aura pressing on the heads of the nobles and dragging the gossip-stained air from their lungs.

Atop the steps stood Prince Im himself, Prince Kihyun next to him, Hyunwoo stoic in the corner. Jisoo was hidden under the deep shadow of the gallery tapestries, and Hyungwon hovered behind the Prince of Middleground.

“Where is the King?” Hoseok whispered to the Knight who had guided him.

“Still ill, bedbound. Her Majesty is tending to his side,” the man replied, devoid of emotion. “His condition has been worsening these last few moons - it has taken a great toll on his Highness the Prince.”

One look at Prince Changkyun stood in the centre of the castle steps between the thrones confirmed this as truth. Bruised circles dampened his hazel eyes and the pallor of his skin was almost green. 

The court was whispering around him as he stood silently, arms folded behind his back, sunken eyes staring daggers at the closed wooden doors of the Throne room. Hoseok found it strange how Minhyuk was nowhere to be seen. The court itself was full of waiting ladies, kingsmen, knights and aristocratic courtiers. They milled about the central aisle, flickering torches casting ghastly shadows across their gossiping mouths and catching their fearful glances at the Fire Breather himself, Hyungwon’s thick lips and swollen eyes echoing clear grief.

Han Oisen had been his protector, his guider, the minister of the southern court for many decades.

Hoseok would never know the bond between Prince and advisor although he assumed it was like family. Hyungwon had just lost a man who he treasured more deeply than his friends. 

Who could it have been? What man would take the life of such a prominent noble - and how did he come to meet Hoseok? Was he a tailor? A servant he greeted occasionally in the halls?

“Where is the King, your Highness?”

The call came from a Lord Hoseok could not name.

“He is ill and has asked me to head this assembly.” The Prince’s voice was hollow, like a fallen tree left to rot in the shadows of the Eodunn forest.

“And her Highness the Queen?”

“Attending to her husband’s bedside.”

Between his cold, curt answers to the staunch man, Hoseok could not help but pick up on the whisperings of the nobility around him.

“Is he even qualified?” one hissed to his neighbour.   
  


“I do not think so. He is more spoilt than a plucked cherry from the Highland Brides”

“That shall be enough talking,” Changkyun called. His voice did not echo the same power of his fathers and it took a few moments for silence to weave its way through the hall. After it’s occurrence the detached Prince turned to a Knight hovering at the bottom of the steps and nodded just once.

A few moments passed and then the towering doors swung open, revealing two Knights with their cutlass swords carrying a man by his arms.

Minhyuk.

Hoseok gasped when he saw his friend in such a condition. Dressed in a white nightshirt, torn sleeved overthrow and shorts as if he had been dragged from his bed at night, material blackened by soot and dirt and odd red stains, hair greying with dust and face streaked with tears. He did not struggle - did not kick or yell in a coarse voice that told of defiance against the dark-faced soldiers that dragged him painfully across the stone floor - merely hung limp in their arms with his face hidden in shame. A metal cuff circled his neck and his hands were bound by rope. A hundred pairs of eyes trained on his humiliating entrance.

The men threw him to the bottom of the steps and he collapsed into a heap of thin limbs and pale, maltreated skin.

The exposed skin of his arms and loose neckline exposed what nobody was prepared to see.

“Oh, Gods,” Hoseok choked out. His words got lost amongst the sudden, frightening hush that descended like a cloaked assassin upon the hall.

Hoseok already knew Minhyuk’s skin twisted in painful grooves that told of burns from a war long lost. Beneath the cruel rope cutting into his wrists, such things were an angry red in irritation and a stark contrast to the delicate, calm demeanour the Northern refugee usually presented.

But the scarlet blood was what caused such a stillness amongst the most powerful people of their time.

Startling crimson blossomed the pure fabric of his garments and flaked as a sickly brown. It crawled up and over his shoulder, splattered along torn sleeves, crusting over old purpled scars.

His hands were coated in the same sticky substance, and with a heave the stable boy realised his fingers no longer had nails. Bile rose in Hoseok’s throat at the sight of his hunched back hanging with slivers of fabric. A mess of scarlet and torturous burgundy, glistening with the remnants of moisture as blood congealed where smooth flesh should have lain.

Minhyuk’s back, sliced with what could have only been a whip.

Hoseok had to turn around. Hatred for his weakness was dampened by the horrible images burning like a forest fire into the back of his eyelids. It was the most terrible sight he had ever seen.

Killing a man did not equate to seeing his friend in such a way. There was nothing, man or woman, animal or human, Giant or Goddess, that could justify such a horrifying sight.

Tears pricked his eyes and his chest heaved with uneven breath. After what seemed like an age of but was likely only an exhausting second, Hoseok took a deep shuddering inhale and turned back to face the court.

A sob choked his way into his throat. Minhyuk had been suffering in such a way while he had gone about by normal? Why? Who had accused him? Who had dared hurt his friend?

“Prince Lee Minhyuk of the Northern Territories,” A scribe stepped forward in speech - the same one who had announced the tax the month previously - with a scroll in his hand and pinched face sour and bored. “You have been brought under the grounds of suspicious of treason against the Crown, The King his Highness Im Changkyun III of the Crest of the Thistle, the penalty of which is death. Do you understand these accusations?”

Minhyuk did not speak.

His hands shook in his bindings. No sound fell from his open mouth, only wide eyes like a deer caught hunting danced around the crowd while he slumped, helpless and alone.

“Do you understand these accusations?” The scribe repeated, impatient. 

“Yes,” Minhyuk breathed. His soft, snow-like voice carried through the room, blanketing the shocked nobles with its comforting tone.

“Do you understand that, due to unforeseen circumstances of immobile illness, His Highness The King has abdicated from this court ruling, and the trail shall instead be undertaken by his representative in the form of Prince Im Changkyun of Middleground?”

“...I do.”

The scribe offered a low bow to Changkyun who dismissed him with a shaky wave of his hand.

The Prince of Middleground looked at the Prince of the Northern Territories.

To Hoseok’s surprise his stare at Minhyuk was not disgusted like the rest of the court. It was not angry, or violent, or cruel or disinterested.

It was young. Vulnerable. Feeble.

Scared.

The din grew louder in the silence until the Prince cleared his throat and another man stepped forward. Small and leery, with grey hair scraped across a shiny head and moles on his wrinkled hands, the man bowed to Changkyun before taking a place on the step before the top.

“Han Oisen is dead,” he declared, voice reverberating through the flickering atmosphere. “He was found last night, after the ball had commenced, lying in his bed with a snowflake dagger lodged in his chest and blood staining the silk around him.”

The court gasped and a scandalised murmur rose in the tense air. Hoseok watched as Hyungwon’s eyes flickered shut and Minhyuk hung his head.

“Han Oisen was the Minister of the Sun Court, a prominent character for six decades and a man of such knowledge he advised four Kings in his lifetime,” the man continued and motioned to Minhyuk’s small frame. “This.. this  _ refugee _ was found wandering the halls of the West Wing housing our lovely guests wearing only his white undergarments splattered with blood. Our trusted guard Heenu caught him as he exited the dorm of none other than Han Oisen.”

Hoseok’s stomach twisted. Around and around into nauseating knots as he had once watched Kangmi do to her bread what seemed like years ago, strong hands warping and kneading until his insides were unrecognisable, a revolting, sickening mess of horror and fear and guilt.

“He’s lying,” Minhyuk whispered. It could barely be caught. “I was dragged from my bed. Why else would I be in such clothes-”

Soft words were halted by sharp actions. Without so much as a hesitation, one of the two gold-threaded knights tugged on his heavy chain and silenced him with a choking cough.

Hoseok stepped forward. There was no way he could let such inhuman treatment happen to the only person who had shown him kindness in the cold castle. He needed to help, needed to- had to-

A hand landed on his arm. Confusion painted Hoseok’s features when he tugged against his guards restraining arm, but the man did not move.

“We, as a people, as a Kingdom so  _ dedicated _ to justice have done our utmost to remove the truth from this traitor. Fifteen lashings, and yet he still refuses to talk,” spoke the Accusor. Wart-covered hands strained the stitches of his tight tunic while he waved his arm in emotive dramatism. “You reside in the East wing, Lee Minhyuk, along with the Royal family. Why were you invading a place you do not call home? A place surrounded by the men who killed your people?”

Minhyuk shuddered at the accusations, but the commoner was not looking. Instead, he had begun to wrestle his own body from his escort, panicked frown on his face while the guard tugged him sharply into place.

“I have been instructed to make you watch, commoner.” 

“I do not want to watch!” Hoseok was suffocating even as he fought, drowning in the horrifying view of Minhyuk’s torn back and terrified face. “I have to help him. He- Look at him! Who told you to do this? Let me go!”

The Knight looked at him. His face was blank. Expressionless.

“The King,” he said.

Hoseok stilled.

His head whipped back to stare at the harrowing image of Minhyuk’s bowed back and taught neck under the gaze of the men he so usually stood behind.

“I was not there,” the Prince choked out.

Hoseok exhaled at the sob that fell from the boy's mouth. A murmur rose in the court, latching onto people’s ankles like the cuffs of a prisoner, rubbing their skin raw with suspicion. Chained to the lies they believed so readily.

“He is the only one who had a motive,” spoke a man Minhyuk had pointed out at the ball - Lord Eun Kibam, handsome, hooked nose and Crest of a jewelled Crow. “Thing wants revenge for the unfortunate happenings of all those years ago.”

“I would do no such thing,” Minhyuk spoke up immediately. One of the accompanying Knights pressed a foot into his lower back but, despite the cry of pain, he kept talking. “My culture was one of peace, not blood-”

“See!” Kibam chuckled and turned to face Prince Im with a face lit up in victory. “Many years in this castle and it still speaks out of line-”

“Lord Kibam.”

Changkyun’s wavering voice echoed in the throne room. It was empty, dead, and did not command power in the slim shoulders or tired eyes that spoke it.

“Yes, your Highness?” Kibam said. His face feigned innocents but his lips were pressed into a smug line.

Changkyun opened his mouth and inhaled as if about to speak some booming command.

And then he collapsed in on himself and his eyes flickered to the floor. Not once did his ghastly face bring itself to look at Minhyuk. It seemed as if he wished he was a hundred miles away.

“Let us move on,” he murmured. The nobles shifted on their feet.

“All I wished to do was express my opinion-”

“Well thank you, Lord Kibam, for your contribution.” Kihyun’s sudden leaden dialect carried in the silent room with the command of a leader. “But I am afraid if you do not decide to repress said opinion, I shall have to cut out your tongue.”

Silence.

A beat passed. Kibam glared daggers at the Highland Prince, while the man dressed in crimson merely goaded him on with an amused stare.

“Your barbaric Highland threats of violence do not phase me, your Highness-”

“You have very pretty teeth, Lord Kibam. Perhaps I should pluck them from your gums and keep them for myself, hm?”

Kibam glared at the sharp, crude Prince. If looks could kill, Kihyun would be sprawled on the floor with three daggers in his chest and a sword in his heart.

The Accuser cleared his throat.

“Refugee Lee Minhyuk,” he directed the court's attention back to the matter at hand. “You are the only one with motive. It must have been somebody in the castle since nobody but we knew Minister Han Oisen was here. It is well known in the court that the Southerners torched your village and your people, surely this was the best way for revenge, no? Is there any person, man or woman, that knows of your whereabouts that night that might prove our accusations wrong?”

Hoseok stared at Minhyuk. He willed the boy with everything in him, prayed to every God listening that the Northern Prince would say his name, that Hoseok could step forward and defend his friend and explain that it could not have been him.

“No,” Minhyuk whispered.

And that’s when it happened.

The faceless Knight whom held onto his restraints with a gloved hand raised his foot and dug the heel straight into Minhyuk’s back.

Minhyuk screamed.

The entire room winced. Changkyun turned away, Hyunwoo closed his eyes, even Kihyun - slight, suspicious, deadly Highlander Kihyun - stared at the far wall with angry wine eyes.

Hoseok was helpless. The Knight still held onto his arm, and even if he could move forward, could somehow push his way through the dense shadows of gowns and embroidered tunics, how could he held his only friend? Throw himself in the way? Shout until they drew back? Hoseok had no knife in his boot and could not fight the entire court at once.

If Hoseok interceded, the punishment would land on Minhyuk.

Why else would the King himself make him watch?

Was this a way of reminding him of his place? Of the power the rich held over him?

That he was - truly - nothing more than a dirtied man offered a luxury for his labour, that he had gotten too comfortable amongst such things?

A thud followed a clatter when Minhyuk was finally pushed to the floor. The horrifying sound caught a sob in Hoseok’s throat while the Northern Prince gasped, clutching the stone ground with bloodied fingers, pupils blown wide and mouth hung open as he fought through shallow breaths.   
  


Bile coated the commoner's mouth. It burnt at his gums, the wretched taste doing nothing to lessen the horror of the scene in front of him. He needed to look away but he couldn’t. He couldn’t. 

It stopped.

The accuser raised his hand and the disgusted faces of the nobles turned from their humiliating stares.

“Where were you the night of the ball, Refugee Lee?”

The Northern Prince rose from the floor slowly. Pain echoed in each torturously gradual movement, and it seemed he could only hold himself up on all fours, for his arms were too weak to sit.

And then, without warning, he looked directly at Hyungwon.

Time froze in his chilling gaze when fire met ice. 

The Sun Prince’s face was unreadable. Not even the greatest scholars of their time could interpret the set lines of his withering, sun-stained face. 

“I do not know,” Minhyuk replied.

And then it happened again. Hoseok turned around when the foot came down on Minhyuk’s back. Hands flew up to grasp at his ears as the excruciating scream shattered the air. With his body trembling and eyes squeezed shut, Hoseok whispered to himself, murmuring he was sorry, so sorry, that he could not stop it, that Minhyuk was hurting, that the kind boy had never done a thing wrong in his life.

How could these cruel, cruel people watch such lies? Did they truly believe it? That Minhyuk was capable of such atrocities?

“Say that again. You do not know?”

“I-I do not know.”

“If you do not know, then you are guilty.”

“I am not guilty, I am no murderer.” Minhyuk’s quiet, rasping voice grew increasingly panicked and was stained with pain. Anger thrashed inside Hoseok when he noticed the nobles glance away from his pathetic display. “I promised I would never be like them, like you, that I would never take a life, never ever-”

“He is obviously at fault!” A deep voice called from somewhere in the ballroom. It seemed to set off a clamour of objections from all those around them.

“Execute him, we will not have a foreign traitor in these halls!”

“His people are dead, there are no alliances to be found in keeping a Northerner as a pet!”

The cry shattered the air. It fell about them in a piercing sob of torturous pain, cutting through the golden throne and echoing from the empty stone walls.

This time it did not stop.

The Knight dug his heel into Minhyuks bloodied back. The scream wavered and Hoseok watched, paralysed, as the Northern Prince’s hands stretched out and grasped at the floor while his eyes rolled back into his head. The gruesome sight of his raw back seething while he tried to breathe shocked the entire court into silence.

“Stop,” Hoseok choked out. A frantic look at the Royals showed Changkyun with his eyes closed and Kihyun fully turned away. 

Blinding anger rose set alight to his veins. 

How dare they not watch what they were causing?

The cruel sound did not cease, not once, until the guard tugged on the metal cuff of his neck. Minhyuk’s back was bent impossibly so as the steel dug into his windpipe. Scarred, bloodied fingers scrabbled at the restraint as his ice eyes blew wide in panic and his breathing cut off, pale face blossoming with a sickly purple far too dark for his complexion.

That was when the screams stopped. When he could no longer find the air to make them.

Without thinking, Hoseok ducked beneath the arm of his guard, forcing his way through the edge of the crowd despite the protests. It gave him just enough room to make himself properly known to Minhyuk, who looked up at him with watery eyes shining with tears and mouth parted in hopelessness. 

Minhyuk was no fighter, Hoseok knew that. But the stable boy willed him to fight just this once. Willed him to fight for his life.

“Hoseok,” Minhyuk exhaled. It was barely a sound, complemented by only the gentlest hint of a smile.

And then it was gone by another foot on his back.

A strong hand grappled Hoseok into position - or at least attempted to do so. His presence was starting to cause a scene, the struggle against the captor Knight forcing neighbouring nobles to gasp and draw back at the fight.

“Let go of me! Stop this!” Hoseok was shouting.

The room stilled as he saw what the second guard behind Minhyuk held, arm raised and ready to strike.

A whip.

The commoner did not hesitate. He shoved his guard to the side with enough force to knock a horse to its knees. Then, he was running, the blur of fabric but a background to the singular man he flew to protect. 

Minhyuk was gaping at him. Scrabbling away from the Knights in frantic fear as Hoseok charged towards them.

The whip came down.

Hoseok flung up his hand as he launched himself in front of his friend.

An explosion of pain so bright it left the room spinning and chest tight. His palm burned. More than real fire, more than the slice of a sword on his cheek. A torturously agonising sting, one that drew a pained cry from his lips and threw his body back in terror.

Blood poured from the open wound and the taste of metal tainted the air as the torturer stood there, dumbfounded and dazed. A hush had fallen about the throne room. Nobody dared to utter so much as a sound with the commoner having interfered.

The Knights face pinched in anger. A flash of fury echoed behind his grey eyes, and he raised the whip again.

“Stop!”

The sound shocked the court. Surprised, the enraged Knight turned to the Royals as he lowered the whip to fall against the floor with a gentle thud.

It had been Changkyun.

Hoseok twisted in his defensive position to stare at the young man.

The Prince was shaken. It was clear in his tight lips, pale face and tense shoulders that looked so fragile they could break at a single tap. The slope of his throat bobbed when he swallowed and his eyes glistened in the firelight.

“That is enough,” he whispered.

“But your Highness-”

“I said, that is enough!” The Prince’s voice reached a shaking crescendo and the Accusor who had addressed him flinched.

Flinched, as if the words of Prince Im set fear deep into his heart.

Eun Kibam - the vindictive, entitled courtier he was - scoffed at such a distraction and turned upon Hoseok with vehement eyes. “This commoner has interfered! With a court matter! He should be tried alongside the refugee!”

“You shall not touch the commoner unless you wish for me to have your head.”

Silence.

Hoseok looked up at Changkyun from where he still sprawled, bleeding on the stone floor. Their gazes met, caught like a fly within a spiders web. Struggling against all other forces but trapped by something outside of their control.

Why was the boy defending him so?

“Take Min-the refugee away. I shall- I shall sentence him by next moon.” The Prince said quietly, voice breaking and head hung. His voice was full of heartbreak and the Northern Prince whimpered at the verdict. “Do not lay another finger on him or I shall give you twenty lashings myself.”

“Wait.”

The throne room stilled.

Minhyuk’s head rose at the low voice. Changkyun looked up, and the Nobles gasped when the speaker stepped forward.

Prince Chae Hyungwon.

His eyes were puffy with tears cried for his advisor. The snakeskin belt and lose silks he wore fluttered dramatically on his willowy flame, and the whip curled against his hip swung loosely with his movement.

The fire burning behind his golden eyes threatened to turn the throne room into ashes.

“Yes, your Highness?” Changkyun said. His voice was tight as if holding back tears he could not cry.

Hyungwon paused. 

“Minhyuk did not attend the ball because he was with me that night.”

The court gasped. Hoseok was momentarily distracted as the guard who had escorted him to the court wrestled his stunned body back into the crowd. For a moment, the stable boy protested, but his struggling was lost amongst the tumultuous murmurs of court as they rose like a flame stoked by the pained whispers of breath.

It was all so perplexing. Why would the Fire Prince claim they were together when it had been one of his own murdered?

“What do you mean, this traitor was with you?” Lord Kibam scoffed. “I saw you at the ball myself. You were there, we all were.”

“Only for the beginning,” Hyungwon spoke quietly but his voice carried strong like the crackling embers of a fire. His eyes never left Minhyuk’s tearful ones. “I left early to find Minhyuk in his quarters. We spent a very pleasant evening wandering the gardens, eventually coming to rest in my room for the night. Oisen was stone cold when my guards found him. For Minhyuk to have committed such a crime, he would have had to do it at the same time as he walked the rose-paths with me.”

Silence.

The Accuser shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. Hoseok tried to get a read of Minhyuk’s face but his head was bowed in shame.

“Why would the refugee wish to engage you in conversation? Your nation massacred his people,” another prominent noble spoke up.

“He asked to meet me. We wished to make peace, resolve our differences,” Hyungwon said calmly. “Politics, while boring, solve conflicts no amount of armies could.”

“That is a very lovely story, Prince Chae, but I am afraid we cannot just accept wishful fairy tales for face,” Lord Kibam retorted. “If you can prove that you were with Minhyuk on the night of the assassination, then I suppose we must let him go free.”

Pause.

Minhyuk’s helpless whimper pierced the silence. Hoseok’s stare bore into Hyungwon’s detached expression, balancing on the balls of his feet as he waited. Was what he said true? Had Minhyuk spent time alone with him?

Why would he do such a thing?

“Your Majesty, it is clear he has no defence. Please, let us finish this quickly,” Lord Kibam said.

Minhyuk shook where he had collapsed on the floor. Hyungwon appeared guarded, withdrawn, no light behind his golden eyes when usually they shimmered with flame.

“I gave him my Crest,” he said. Stoic. Unmoving. 

The court stilled.

“Pardon, Prince?” Changkyun murmured. 

Another pause followed. Hyungwon seemed tired. Filled with grief.

“I gave him my Crest,” he repeated gently.

Minhyuk whimpered and hung his head.

When the Accuser flicked his hand in command, the Knights began to wrestle Minhyuk from the stone floor, tugging at his skin painfully while they grappled his white overthrow from his body.

When they let him fall once again, his silver, six-spoked snowflake glinted prettily under the firelight.

And, directly below that, shone the eight-spoked sun and its golden gems.

The Crest of the Chae Royal family.

The court erupted. The outcry was louder than Hoseok had ever heard, voices jousting over each other, gasps and curses and accusations thrown at both the Fire and Northern Prince. Words of disbelief, of shock, of fear.

Hoseok stood feeling suddenly out of his depth.

To give somebody your Crest was to promise yourselves to them. It was, in most instances, a romantic gesture, one of complete devotion. A hope. A guarantee. A life, together.

“Lee Minhyuk,” Kihyun’s leaden voice rose above the din. “You understand that, should your relationship with Prince Chae be romantic, your refugee status would be revoked and you would be exiled?”

“I promise it is not romantic, your Highness,” Hyungwon reassured calmly. “Men and their politics do not interest me in bed. We were simply tired. I offered Minhyuk a place to sleep. My Crest was a promise that I would never harm him while in slumber, now and for the rest of my life.”

The nobles, while shocked, seemed open to this explanation. They held onto the Fire Prince’s words with greedy fingers and nodded between themselves after his speech.

“Refugee Lee Minhyuk,” Changkyun said with a quiet voice like the scratch of nails against skin. “Does what his Highness say ring true?”

A beat passed.

Minhyuk closed his eyes.

“Yes.”

Hoseok breathed a sigh of relief. Even as the Knight sent to escort him wrestled him back into position, the brief reprieve from overwhelming worry comforted him, because he did not understand Hyungwon’s lies but he was grateful, so grateful. It did not erase the fact Minhyuk was still bleeding, though, and his face was empty of all the laughter Hoseok was used to-

“In that case, Minhyuk has been cleared for the murder of Minister Han Oisen,” Changkyun said quietly. There was an overwhelming relief in his trembling voice. “He will be sentenced to a week in the dungeons for blasphemy against Middleground and the manipulation of a man for his crest.” The Prince opened his mouth to say more, but then dropped his shoulders and stepped backwards. “Court dismissed.”

And with that it was over. 

Rooted to the spot, Hoseok watched helplessly as Minhyuk was taken away, the Royals converging in the corner to talk amongst themselves, Changkyun escaping with attendants through the back door and the nobles beginning to disperse. Even the Knight who had escorted him disappeared without a goodbye and Hoseok felt strangely empty as the courtiers trickled from the room and left the dimly lit stone floor an empty bed of broken dreams as screams still echoed in the air.

Nothing always gave way to something, however, and the anger was quick to creep upon him. Standing amongst the blur and scandalised chatter droning around him, Hoseok found it lit a fire beneath his lungs, filled each crevice of his shaking body with vulgar smoke that chased the taste of acid from his tongue and replaced it with that of blood.

How dare they? How dare they talk amongst themselves as if they had not just watched somebody - a shy somebody, one who never spoke out of line, who existed only in soft laughter and gentle touches - writhe on the floor in pain? The sting of his injured hand meant nothing to him, now. Even as he thumbed the concealing blood as it attempted to staunch its own slowing bleeding, the pain only furthered the throbbing red of his shaking vision.

Hoseok did not know what he was doing as he stormed from the Throne room. Deafening footsteps lost within the red hue of his watery vision followed his every move. He did not know where he was going until he was there. Did not recognise the dim corridors and haunting red tapestries until the Guards stepped forward in protest.

“Halt, commoner-”

“Shut  _ up _ !” Hoseok shouted and the Knights hesitated in surprise. Nimble limbs meant he could duck under their outstretched arms and heave open the heavy wooden door. They tried to catch him, shouted for violent reinforcement, but it was too late.

Hoseok had found his way to the resting room in which Prince Im had comforted Minhyuk what seemed like aeons ago while he had cried over the Fire Breathers. 

Back then it had seemed warm. Welcoming. Somewhat cramped for a room of the castle frequented by royalty, decorated with intense tapestry and golden tables that did nothing to raise the low ceiling or windowless walls.

Now it was cold. The curtains were not comforting but dangerous. The fire not warm, but whipping flames that conjured shadows like that of old monsters from the dark wooden furniture.

Prince Im sat on a chair with his head held in his hands. Kihyun stood above him, and his sharp face looked up in surprise when the commoner entered in a flurry of anger.

“Hoseok.”

The stable boy had not noticed Hyunwoo was there. Recoiling from the restraining grip the Princeguard forced upon him, he cursed and began to struggle.

“Hoseok,” Hyunwoo repeated, in that calm intone of his. Hands were firm and gentle where they held him but left him so close to the Royals he could see the tears on their faces.

“Let him talk, Hyunwoo.”

It was Changkyun. The small Prince had risen, albeit on shaky legs, and was wiping at his eyes while settling his shoulders into his signature graceful poise.

“How dare you,” Hoseok’s voice was far too loud to be contained in the room. Changkyun’s lips grew tight. “How  _ dare  _ you!”

“Please do not raise your voice,” he whispered.

Hoseok ignored him. Hyunwoo relaxed his grip but did not let him get any closer.

“How dare you sit there after what you did!” His cheeks were wet. He could not tell if the tears were anger or fear. “Minhyuk is innocent! You fucking bastard!”

“Do not call me such blasphemous things.”

“I’ll call a torturer whatever I wish!”

The fragile demeanour of the younger broke. He threw his goblet to the floor with an almighty crash and turned upon the stable boy. “Tell me what I was meant to do, commoner! Tell me, oh by the Gods, let me know what better idea you have to solve all this! Do you know what my father told me when Minhyuk was caught? As he lies on his deathbed and cannot breathe? He told me to give him fifty lashings and hang him no matter his innocence!”

Hoseok scoffed. The wine of the thrown goblet pooled across the stone floor like thick blood, seeping into the cracks and staining the carpet with scarlet. Hoseok’s own hand did the same. “So you gave him fifteen instead?”

“You were not the only one to hear his screams!” Changkyun was hysterical. A heavy glaze had settled over his hazel eyes and the bruises of his exhaustion echoed so clearly on his youthful face. “The fire breathers may well threaten war over this!  They came into our lands for peace and one of them was  _ assassinated _ in the very bed we provided him. If I- If I do not punish somebody - somebody -  _ anybody _ \- then I am a weak Prince, a weak King- I cannot- I did not want this- ”

“You don’t care about Minhyuk! You won’t even let him sit at your table!”

“ How must I tell you that it is not a matter of letting anybody do anything!” Changkyun wiped at his eyes and his voice rose an octave. “You think I do not want him sat by my side? You think I do not want him to indulge all the luxuries we do?”

“No!”

“Well you are wrong!” Changkyun shouted. Hyunwoo’s grip tightened on the stable boy when he stilled at the pained outburst. “You are so wrong, commoner, about everything! You do not know anything about me! Do not presume to tell me what I wish for my loved ones as if you have been here all these years - as if you know what Minhyuk and I have been through! I had to let him hurt or- or they would execute him- they would depose me and have him killed- I- I could not-”

Hoseok spoke through gritted teeth as the Prince trailed off. “You knew he didn’t do it. You knew, and you still tortured him.”

Changkyun looked at him.

If there was a word that could describe how young he looked in that moment, Hoseok was sure it still could not encompass the extent of his hurt. Hazel eyes a swimming pool of guilt, delicate mouth parted. His lips must have tasted salty because as Hoseok watched, a tear tracked its way from cheek to slip into the corner of his mouth.

“I want you to leave now,” Changkyun said. No longer shouting. Just.. withdrawn, once more, as he had been the night of the ball. Voice so quiet it was like the gentle crunch of bare feet on snow, when one was afraid to step too hard and shatter the ice lake underneath.

“I do not take commands from Princes-”

“Then it is not a command!” Changkyun cried. “Please, leave! Please! I am asking! Just go!”

Hyunwoo was the one to catch the Prince when he stumbled backwards. Warm, sturdy arms wrapped around the smaller while he gripped Princeguard’s tasselled tunic, tugging on the embroidery as soft cries stained the silk. 

No sense of satisfaction came from seeing the young Prince break down like so. It did not quell the anger in his veins, nor did it halt the wave of guilt that threatened to drown him.

“I think you should leave now, Hoseok,” Kihyun said quietly. His teeth glinted, stained red with wine, but his gaze was as piercing as ever.

“Why? Will you cut out my tongue if I don’t?”

Kihyun paused. For the first time, the unsettling aura of the crimson Prince overwhelmed him. It threatened him. The regret only amplified when Kihyun spoke, voice forceful contained anger. “I asked you to be kinder to my brother. It pains me greatly that this is how you reacted. If you think any of us here would purposely hurt one of our own, you are dearly mistaken. Please try to see it from our perspective.”

“Fuck you,” said Hoseok, and then he turned on his heel to leave. 

No guard stopped his exit. Even they seemed unwilling to touch his commonfolk skin.

  
  
  
  
  
-♛-

 

 

All he could think of was Minhyuk.

Minhyuk and his ice-blue eyes and white hair and soft skin so pale he seemed like parchment. Minhyuk and his gentle voice and airy laugh and how much he had opened up to the stable boy since they had met.

How Minhyuk had called him his first true friend.

It was of no surprise, then, when Hoseok, after pacing his room for far too long and washing his face in the basin every few minutes (hair still black and smudged with coal) that the stable boy felt the need to visit him. After ripping a dirtied shirt and tying it as a makeshift bandage around his hand, he set off, determined to find the other.

He did not know where the dungeons were but he assumed it had to be down, right?

Hoseok wandered through the castle with fear prickling his skin. He took every downward staircase he could until he eventually ended up in a cramped, darkened corridor that smelt of mould and rotten hay.

A single woman held a torch in her hand and was replenishing it with oil.

“Excuse me, do you know where the dungeons are?”

The woman pointed towards a darkened corridor without looking. Hoseok gulped before hurrying to take the first step.

It stretched for as far as he could see. A bottomless pit of stone steps that had no end while he hurried down them.

He would not be scared. He was commonfolk, and he would not be scared.

Eventually the stone turned to rickety wood and the pressing ceiling opened into a long windowless hall. The granite floor was damp with mould and dirt and murky water dripped down the walls.

On each side were cubicles no bigger than a stable, metal bars hung from ceiling to floor, a single door held with locks all down the row.

Two bored guards sat by the entrance. When Hoseok entered they looked up and waved him ahead with a lazy hand.

Hoseok thanked them and scurried forward, squinting in the lack of light. The single torch he held burned low and cast ghastly shadows that jumped out as monsters before him.

Minhyuk was in the third cell.

Hoseok exhaled softly when he saw him. Almost glowing in the darkness, the pale man sat hunched in one corner. The chain from his neck hooked onto a floor peg, the ropes around his wrist loosened only slightly, body shivering from the cold. 

Neither of them said anything when Hoseok set his torch on the wall and lowered himself to sit against the bars. Minhyuk attempted to shuffle as close as he could despite his restraints. A pained grimace painted his delicate face, his back a dark shadow of congealed scarlet, the scars of his hands twisting into empty nail beds. Dappled dirt lay on his white hair. He came to a stop an arm's length away, just as the chain of his neck pulled tight.

“I did not do it,” he whispered.

“I know,” Hoseok breathed. He did not wish to feel pity for his friend but could not help it in that moment.

“Hyungwon- he- he,” The Northern Prince took a shuddering breath and wiped at his eyes. “He lied for me. Prince Chae- he lied for me- It did not happen like that. Then- that's why- they found me as they did- I-”

“Stop,” Hoseok said when the startling blue of his eyes dripped with tears. “Stop. Don’t talk of it when it hurts you like this-”

“Do not hate Changkyun.” Minhyuk’s voice was scratchy and urgent- no longer the soft pillow of snow, but forced and raw and painful to listen to. “He will apologise. I know it.”

“And you’ll forgive him?”

“Yes,” the Northern Prince whispered. “There was nothing he could do. He was cornered.”

“He could have defended you,” Hoseok said angrily, but lowered his voice and shuffled closer to the bars when the guards looked over at the disruption. “Why are you so kind to him? He watched as you hurt-”

“Please, Hoseok. Stop,” Minhyuk said. “He is the only reason I am alive. I.. I care for him so. He has comforted me in dark times - taught me the language of Middleground-” the Northern Prince took a shuddering breath and curled his knees to his chest. “I know we are friends, but please do not talk bad of the Prince.”

Hoseok sat back in shock. 

The other man had always chastised him, scolded him for language or posture or tone, but never had he dropped his voice to barely a whisper and begged for clemency like so.

“Does it hurt?”

Minhyuk sniffed. “I suppose. But I have felt worse.”

“I am sorry.”

“Do not be. The only thing I have ever done is endure.”

“Were you really with Hyungwon?” Hoseok asked. The sound carried unsettlingly loud in the chilling darkness.

“Yes.”

“As Minji?”

“As Minhyuk,” Minhyuk replied. Hoseok exhaled in surprise. “Why could I not just- just be like them, for one night? Why could I not enjoy myself? Why must your Gods hate me so?”

“This is not a matter of the Gods,” Hoseok said quietly, although how much he believed of it, he did not know.

“Prince Chae found me after I had left the ball. When you had danced with Changkyun, I returned to my room.” The Prince whimpered in pain as he tried to move. “He knocked on the door and I opened it thinking it was you."

“It was him?”

“He’d- had a lot to drink. Too much- I was scared, at first, but then I noticed him crying.” Minhyuk himself wiped shakily at his tears as the soft words spilt from his lips. “He got on his knees for me. He apologised, so much, so many times, for everything his father had done to me. He said his father is a cruel person and he prays for the day he will die and begged me - not to forgive him, he said that was too much to ask, but to try to have a relationship. He.. wants to treat me like somebody with status, not a refugee.”

Silence.

“Oh,” Hoseok breathed.

“Yes. Oh,” Minhyuk sniffed. “He- he made me take his crest. As a promise that he should never hurt me, that I would forever be protected by his men. That blue eyes would never fall to fire ever, ever again.”

Hoseok was silent.

Sniffles ran alongside the drip of water down dungeon walls. “I just want to belong somewhere, Hoseok. To have a people. To have a family.”

Hoseok looked down at his own hands. At the callouses of long work, the swollen joints from unending labour, the blisters littering his palm from forcing horseshoes with primitive fire.

He understood, in a convoluted way. The overwhelming need to just  _ belong. _

“Tell me about your home,” Hoseok said. “Tell me about.. About  _ Eulemtahl. _ ”

Minhyuk smiled and then winced at the pain. “Learning your language was so difficult. Your culture is.. different too, You are so quick to turn to violence, all of you - in  _ Eul _ there is no word for ‘murder’,” he laughed, bitter, before coughing and then crying out in pain. “We have a saying in the North, you see.  _ Eulæsah,  _ _ áistrah, ouekaalah. _ It means, ‘We live, we love, we die’. Our sole purpose as mortals is to love. Not to harness the energy of snow, not to trap spirits or break bones or hunt ice-wolves extinct… We find love. In friends, in family, in ourselves.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“Mm. My people were,” Minhyuk’s smile faltered. “I miss them.”

A pause.

"Speak in your language,” Hoseok asked. “I want to listen."

For a moment, the Northerner seemed to think of the request, brow drawing together as he turned the words over in his mind. "I'll tell you the story of our birth. The ice gods that gave us warmth in our blood. The life force that keeps us all alive."

And then he began.

Hoseok listened to the foreign language. It was strange and lacked many sounds he knew. Overflowing with vowels and void of consonants with many words interjected with faint glottal stops that caused a throaty pause. It was pretty. Delicate. Soft and gentle much like the man itself, drifting quietly alone the draft of the dungeon and settling itself on the cold stone floor.

"How do you say thank you in Eul?" Hoseok asked when Minhyuk had finished his speech.

"We do not say thank you, exactly. We say ‘my life is yours’” Minhyuk shrugged. " _ Ouaâh, kemaahl, _ "

" _ Ouaâh, kemaahl, _ Minhyuk,"

_ "Ouaâh, kemaahl,  _ Hoseok." The Northern Prince offered a hint of a smile. Every exhale grew heavier as he tried to withstand the pain. "My people were my everything."

"How do you cope without them?"

"Sometimes I think I do not. I wonder - would it not have been easier if I had burned? If I had travelled with my people into the land beyond ours? But then I realised that would mean their struggle was in vain. So long as I live, they live within me."

Hoseok thought of his home - of the dilapidated hut, the dried alter, the rotting stables and mottled table and single candle that lit the room his mother sat in day by day and night by night despite the chill in the air.

He slipped his hand through the metal bars.

For a moment no sound came. With the small shaft of light floating through the slit in the wall, Hoseok’s tanned skin was illuminated by the moonlight as it hovered in the air.

Then a rustle followed clinks of a chain and Minhyuk’s white hand entwined with his.

"Lee Minhyuk is not my name,” he said. "You may call me  _ Maâhn-hya _ , if you wish. Prince  _ Maâhn-hya Oulnah Tahleūm _ ."

"That is a beautiful name," Hoseok whispered. “Thank you,  _ Maâhn-hya _ .”

When Minhyuk closed his eyes, he finally seemed content. 

Despite the must and damp and cold the stable boy slipped into light slumber without another word.

It was sometime later when he was jerked awake by light footsteps and the creak of wooden stairs. For a moment the disorientation confused him - it was so dark, the cold seeping into his thin slacks, the position uncomfortable leant against the wall, hand still entwined with the sleeping prisoner in his damp cell.

The noise was Prince Kihyun.

Hoseok bit back a gasp when he noticed the sharp Prince - dressed in a crimson cape lined with fur and the hilt of a sword at his waist - inspecting the goblets of the guards with some degree of amusement. They lay sprawled on the table and their mouths opened in the respiration of deep, deep sleep.

When the floating shadow ghosted past him Hoseok inhaled, eyes squeezed shut so as to not to be detected, and then the Prince disappeared into the dark corridor ahead.

Hoseok did not have to think twice before deciding to follow

He gently lay Minhyuk’s hand on the floor before scrambling to his feet and hurrying after the man. Each step seemed a clap of thunder in the dead of night and Hoseok hoped that he was quiet enough to avoid detection.

Hoseok followed him through the entire dungeon. When he grew confused at the approaching dead-end wall, the Prince ducked into the last cell.

It was a secret staircase. A crudely carved archway led into a stairway so dark it seemed even the dead of night could not match its sinister existence.

Steeling his nerves, Hoseok shot one last glance at the passed out guards and single burning torch, before swallowing his fear and beginning the long descent. At one point the cramped staircase levelled out into a room no bigger than Hoseok’s small hut house but then it continued, down and down so far Hoseok swore they must be under the ground by now and the soil threatened to collapse on his head and suffocate him to death.

Suddenly the walls opened into a corridor lined with stagnant water, and then, the arch broke into outside castle grounds. 

A secret passage in and out of the castle.

Hoseok was about to step out of the dingy passage, but he gasped and hugged the stone with his back when he saw the two silhouettes stood in a clearing of garden.

Priest Jooheon and Prince Kihyun.

Jooheon and Kihyun. Alone in some hidden corner of the castle grounds, lit only by a single lantern placed on the ground that made the shadows of the trees flicker like giants from tales long ago. The Priest’s sandy hair was looped in plaits around his head before falling in waves to his chest and his golden headdress mirrored the blur of leaves.

Their words were mumbled, indistinct. Hoseok peered around the corner with wide eyes.

Jooheon gave Kihyun a package. Kihyun accepted it with a bow.

It frustrated Hoseok beyond belief that their speech was just out of reach, hovering beyond the scope of his ears, doused in the drip of water down castle walls and the gentle rustle of grass by wind.

If he could just creep a little closer- just skirt around the edge of the alcove to stop the blockage of words-

Hoseok grimaced when the frosty grass cracked underfoot but breathed a sigh of relief when he hid behind alone alter.

"-be everything, my Grace?" Jooheon’s hypnotic voice made the stable boy jump.

"Yes, Priest,” Kihyun replied. “Thank you, your help shall be rewarded greatly."

"You know I ask for no rewards, Kihyun. Only that the goods are safe."

"Which they are," Kihyun said. Hoseok narrowed his eyes at the exchange - Kihyun thumbing the rope binding the package and his scarlet eyes glittering under the firelight. "How is his Majesty?"

"His spirit hovers on the edge of the dead realms," Jooheon replied gravely. "The goddesses will soon take him. They have stopped him from breathing, too many times have their fingers plunged to take his heart. I can only delay them so long."

"How long?"

"Long enough." Jooheon seemed reassuring, but then he cocked his head to the side and smiled. "I fear I shall be sent back to my homelands when Changkyun assumes position as King. I do not wish to return - I miss it greatly, but I believe in your cause."

"My brother is fond of you, as he is many men, Priest," Kihyun’s lips twisted upwards. "You are rather beautiful. I think you are safe."

"Thank you, your Grace."

"No, thank you, Jooheon."

Hoseok inhaled sharply and pressed himself against the back of the altar when Kihyun whisked past him towards the passage from which he’d come. His wine-coloured cape fluttered in the light wind like the ripple of firelight on such sickly sweet liquid, and he tightened his hood before disappearing into the darkness - Jooheon quickly whisking himself away into the dark gardens of night.

Hoseok was alone once again.

The commoner was left worrying about far too many things for his status. Why did Kihyun require services from the Priest Jooheon? Why would a Priest ally himself with politics? What was in the package handed over? 

Why would Kihyun not stop talking of the King’s death?

Hoseok collapsed on the floor by the altar. He clasped his hands and attempted to offer a brief prayer, but none of his Gods listened, for his mind was far too cloudy with Minhyuk hurting alone in a dark cell and Highland Prince’s plotting behind the thrones back to focus much on divine beings. They had abandoned him, his Gods, his Giants. He was more sure of it then he was of his own illiteracy. They looked upon him and scorned his secret indulgence in luxury and his aching, growing desire to never leave his bed and food and friends ever again.

He was beginning to think there were no Gods in the castle made of stone. There could not be, not anymore. Not to Hoseok.

If there is one thing the stable boy promised to himself, vowed to whatever gods may be listening - the spirits of his Giants, the Fire of the South, the Goddesses of the East. Even the singular Highland God, that one man of ultimate power who commanded all with his own being. Whatever or whoever may be listening to his prayers at that moment, that he would find the man who had killed Han Oisen, and he would tear him apart. Bit by bit at the hand of his red-leather knife, to make up for the pain he had caused Minhyuk.

There would be no mercy for the murderer of the Sun Prince’s attendant. Hoseok would make sure of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, scream in my CC [here](https://curiouscat.me/shinsxoh) and find me on twt [here](https://twitter.com/shinsxoh). we pick up in pace a little from now on so!! fun times


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